Indigo Suburbia
by SaucyMongoose
Summary: When a particular mountain summit in South Park conceals the sun, a shadow blooms, and the suburbs morph into a beautiful blue. Kenny tries not to think of Craig, but helplessly, he does. Crenny, again.
1. Chapter 1

/

In other neighborhoods, Kenneth McCormick does not exist. There's some other, more standard, less attractive blonde boy with a different name. He probably has better habits, a better future, a better home—but he's not as elusive as Kenny. His hair might not be as blonde. He can't disappear into narrow waves of cigarette smoke, like Kenny can. He certainly can't yearn for Craig, like the sardonic boy wishes he would; that other boy doesn't even know Craig. And he feels like, _that's the thing_. He thinks: _that's the rationale for any story, any romance_.

Kenny is here, and the other boy is somewhere else. There's a whole world out there—billions of people he could've become—but he's here; he's wordlessly watching Craig swing at and miss oncoming baseballs. Inwardly, he's thinking of how Craig is the best pitcher on the high school team and how his trip to the batting cage isn't really necessary. He's thinking of the way his fingers flex around the bat, how the bat doesn't look right in Craig's arms. Kenny's thinking of things to say, things he'll never say, even when he and Craig are the only people lurking the batting cages.

But- truthfully- it's all Craig's imagination running wild, like the forest adjacent to town. It's the reason why he can't _fucking_ hit anything in this _fucking_ place. Craig's always thinking about Kenny, wondering what the fuck he's doing behind him, wondering what he's assuming whenever he swings. When curiosity tugs at Craig enough for him to turn around, he's never disappointed. Kenny's either slanted against a bench, popping bubblegum or smoking cigarettes he shouldn't be. He's either kicking the vending machine in the next room, gaze flicking between the cages and the glow of junk food behind the glass—or he's keen on the baseball activity.

His eyes—that remarkable cerulean color the oceans envy—are either burning hot holes in Craig's back, or they're pinned on Stan Marsh: Craig's unofficial mortal enemy. Stan: who's juggling football in the autumn and baseball in the spring. Stan: the same Stan who laboriously kissed Kenny in the boy's locker room (because he wanted to know how it would taste), who can't leave Kenny alone—even when he has his cute little redhead waiting for him back in the suburbs.

Craig pauses, baseballs flying past him and pushing into the net. He swelters in his hoodie; he listens to Stan's bat strike every baseball hurled at him. He squeezes his own and lets all of his frustration seep into the pores of the wood.

He thinks: in other neighborhoods, Kenneth McCormick does not exist. There's a different blonde boy that Craig couldn't possibly ponder like this because he's not as handsome, because he doesn't smoke as much. He understands the rationale for any story, any romance; it's all about being in the right place at the right time. He tells himself: _the right time may never arrive, but it could be imminent._ He convinces himself that South Park is the right place, but he'd rather be somewhere warmer, where the houses aren't plastered in an indigo film, where Kenny's caramel tan skin doesn't look so odd.

Craig misses another baseball and believes that the black net of the batting cage is the only thing separating him from Kenny. He tells himself: _focus, you're in the same fucking vicinity as Kenny._

Between swings, Craig thinks: _you should be grateful for that._

 _/_

Pitching practice is different.

Craig pitches in the tranquility of his spacious backyard, which is mostly dirt, weeds, and spontaneous patches of snow; this setting lacks the airburst of baseballs being fired across batting cages, the poof sounds of baseballs smacking against nets, and the devious distraction of Kenny. His father purchased a _deluxe_ pitching target from the sporting goods outlet a while ago, and every day Craig puts it to use. He throws forty pitches: ten curveballs, sinkers, cutters, and screwballs each.

Sometimes, his father watches from the back porch and compliments his form. There are times when he's in worse moods, when he nitpicks the positions of Craig's fingers, the speed of the ball as it slaps the target. But Craig's alone frequently—it's usually just him and his lucky baseball with the loose, red stitching and the faded signature. The cicadas drone hidden tunes; a certain mountain peak eclipses the sun and the entire neighborhood turns blue. The winds whisper and fuck up the curve of his pitch.

In this denim environment, Kenny can't get to him. Blonde thoughts can't lurk here. Every throw reminds him of his invulnerability.

Craig tells himself: _your curveball is gorgeous, but your sinker is better._

 _/_

 _Hey… I don't know shit about baseball._

 _It's a little short, but I'm testing the waters. Tell me how you feel._


	2. Chapter 2

/

It's Kenny's one blunder—his _only_ mistake in all his years of masterful coquetry—he should've never kissed Stan Marsh, ever.

Kenny said it once, to Stan's face—specifically, to the dilemma of his lips after another curt kiss in the locker room—and Stan had laughed with a smile, without desperation or difficulty. He thinks Kenny is concerned about the rumors floating around the high school (he's not; he's more confounded over Stan's willingness to be with him, another _boy_ ). He tells him: _don't worry, Kenny, it's really not a big deal_.

It doesn't matter if people know they're a _thing_.

But people don't know the _whole_ story and how could they? Stan doesn't remember or Stan won't tell them about spinning the bottle in the swing of sixth grade spring, when the delicate white blossoms were inundating sidewalks, when they were on the peripheries of welcomed adolescence. It could be too much, maybe.

He might not want to talk about being trapped in Clyde Donovan's closet for five minutes with Kenneth McCormick, eyelids scrunched against each other, dark eyelashes coalescing into a contour over the pout of his cheeks. Stan's lips were puckered sour like the taste of Warheads—because Kenny's memory is relative to a steel trap and he can't _really_ forget his _only_ slipup—and Stan's fingers were clenched around his throat, thumbs digging into his Adam's apple painfully, _excruciatingly_ —but they still held the kiss. But Kenny's not sure if he could really call it that now, considering the manner in which he kisses at age sixteen. It was too innocent and easy, no movement whatsoever, just the juxtaposition Kenny's lips against Stan's, for seven lengthy seconds.

The parting was harsh; Stan's clammy palm found Kenny's forehead and shoved him back into coats and boxes. He wiped at his mouth with the collar of his sweater, effectively concealing the stain of rose swamping his cheeks, the tremble of his lips, the puberty-riddled whimper that escaped them as he scrambled on his hands and knees for the door.

Kenny can remember—but it's understandable if Stan can't; his mind is too centered on football, baseball, keeping his grades decent so he can become a scholar athlete. That mistake was years ago and faint, like the pigments in all of Kenny's over-washed shirts. It could be hard to recall who initiated the kiss—because that's what truly matters when it comes to comprehending the complex issue of _osculation_ , because the initiation explains motive and places blame.

People don't know that Kenny leaned in to kiss him first, in the dim light of Clyde's closet, with coarse and inexperienced sixth grade lips. Kenny should've never done something so simple and effortless. It was the _beginning of the end_ : the instigation of feelings and moments that should've never happened, that could potentially ruin an immaculate friendship.

(But it's already ruined, right? Because of his only fucking mistake.)

/

"Want some dessert?"

"No thanks, man."

The window in Stan's living room granted a rather mundane view of his street, but when the sun managed to set in the evenings, the suburbs of South Park were swathed in a calm and ethereal indigo hue. A golden and orange ring haloed the mountains beyond the symmetrical houses across the street and shone over the blue into Kenny's eyes. He sits on the sill, counting the cars roll by—but he can feel Stan's eyes inching over his physique, even as he clambers in the kitchen for his sister's birthday cake ice cream.

"Come and sit with me. You're kinda far."

Stan calls for him when he finds the carton; he obtains a spoon from the silverware drawer and sits at the table. Kenny approaches languidly, without a neat article of clothing veiling the curiosity plastered on his face, the vivid pink of his lips—Stan can't stop staring.

"I thought we were going to the batting cages today."

Stan hums, spoon swirling ice cream and sprinkles together, "I'm not feeling it. We can go to the cages later. Tomorrow, I mean."

Kenny stays quiet; he seats himself. They observe each other, Stan beaming at the blonde between bites of ice cream.

"I can't believe you don't want any. It's good."

Stan offers him a taste: a spoonful of white ice cream, a generous chunk of yellow cake, and a plethora of assorted sprinkles.

Kenny doesn't decline; he leans over the table—elbows propped and lids fluttering shut as the cold spoon prods his upper lip, begging for entry. Kenny doesn't like the grin Stan provides when he lets himself give into his friend's ministrations. He doesn't like how Stan considers this an _indirect kiss_. He doesn't like how that expression compels a callous scoff from his lips, but a stutter from his heart. Stan is surprisingly tender, remarkably saccharine.

Kenny wonders if he was like this with Wendy-

"You're sure you don't want some? We can share."

Stan gestures with the spoon. Kenny's reply was accompanied by a languid smile, "I'm sure; I don't want Shelly to murder me."

Stan grimaced, black bangs tickling his eyelids, "She's such a bitch."

This is routine; this is comfortable and content. They've done this before with and without ice cream. Kenny knows what's next:

Stan will lead him upstairs by the hand—even though Kenny knows where his room is. He'll close the door behind them, suggesting more than what will actually occur. If Stan is feeling impudent, he'll plant kisses in _neutral_ and _platonic_ places like one would plant flowers: the wrist, the palm, the forehead.

They'll lie down for a while, under the hefty blankets of Stan's bed, Kenny's cheek against Stan's sternum. Kenny admires his scent too much: the sports deodorant mingled with hints of cologne. He'll be able to eavesdrop on the murmurs of his heart, the even thuds against bone. The dissonance will ease him into sweet dreams of pretty admiral ocean tides and gorgeous sapphire skies adorned with cotton candy clouds, sweet as the nothings sighed into his ears. Stan will slip fingers over his shoulder blades, around the mounds and down the canyon of vertebrae, where the sweat convenes due to the unyielding warmth of the sheets and Stan's body

A day will arrive when Stan—after countless evolutions of sentiment and longing—will transition his fingers from the tedious planes of Kenny's clothed back to the unknowns of his bare stomach. He'll circle his navel and toy with the elastic enclosing his waist, prompting a gasp of his name: _Stan_. Essential eye contact will commence and linger, even as his fingers loop around the subtle jut of his hipbone—the ball and socket—even as they descend past the elastic to corporal places of _trepidation_ and _pleasure_ , past points of _comfort_ and _platonic_.

It's a future that frightens Kenny, because he doesn't know what his body will want, what his brain will tell him to do, what his heart will think. He tried to plan it out during his myriad of daydreams, but he knows that all things lustful are impromptu and brainless. What if he flinches when Stan touches him? What if he bites when Stan kisses him, teeth tearing through lip, blood staining the sheets? What if he freezes in the process of unbuckling Stan's belt, gullet compressed, meager muscles taut, and eyes moist with unbidden tears—because Stan will inquire with fretful eyes and benign fingers caressing Kenny's skin: _what's wrong, are you okay?_

What if he looks up at him with those damp cheeks and restless irises, what if he struggles, lips quivering with unspoken words? What if Kenny can't explain how he doesn't love Stan like he should, effectively severing the arteries in his friend's heart and provoking eternal abhorrence, which means so much more when Kenny can't ever die?

/

 _Ahhh, this chapter is… frustrating. But tell me how you feel._


	3. Chapter 3

/

On the back of Kenny's right hand, there's a shit-streak brown birthmark; it looks like a deformed and distorted heart. Stan mentioned this in the fourth grade during lunch, verbally, as if he hadn't noticed before. This was when he was starting to _feel_ Kenny and his distance, how he just seemed to quietly lurk and loiter in the milieu of places. He started to feel want, like longing for Wendy and a subtle longing to understand Kenny better.

Hence, Stan's meager emphasis of the shit birthmark. His mouth was full of shitty school lunch nachos at the time, and between nasty chomps, he pointed. Stan's index finger delicately wandered the dilemma of Kenny's rouge skin, flushed by the occurrences of recess. Stan marveled at how his motions trailed white, then blossomed pink.

Kenny, enigmatic and quiet, rolled his wrist to be rid of his touch, which prompted awkward eye contact that lasted long enough for Stan to turn the same rosy shade as him. Stan's hand recoiled back beneath the lunch table and he started chewing again because—for some unknown and insignificant reason—he had stopped. His attention returned to his shitty nachos smothered in shitty cheese, but Kenny's gaze persisted—his finger flicked out to catch his concentration.

His lips moved beneath the orange veil of parka, "What's wrong?"

Stan swallowed, a bulge of taco meat and tortilla visibly descending down his throat. He explained again, but the reiteration was sloppy: "Your birthmark. It looks like a heart. But it's kinda like a shit stain too."

He watched as the blonde's fingers curled in, how his lax hand morphed into a subtle fist. Stan glanced at Kenny's sharp knuckles, then Kenny's mostly veiled expression, eyes a little too wide and expectant. Wrinkles breached the space between Kenny's eyebrows and little lines creased the bridge of his nose. Stan was able to discern the frown on his lips, despite the hood; it was a skill that came with time and observation, particular care for the small details.

"Gross."

Stan snorted, puckering his lips over his chocolate milk's straw. He spoke around it.

"But it does look like a heart?"

Kenny's head tilted at a thoughtful angle—his eyes narrowed that small bit, enough to let Stan know he was thinking.

"I guess."

There was an instant of silence, a moment of agreement between them; Kenny looked up and their eyes converged on the same path. Stan felt the urge to smile sheepishly in front of his lunch table audience: Kyle and Cartman and somehow Craig, because this was a certain warm shade of gratifying—the kind that fills the heart, pumps through the veins, and flashes back to the arteries. This was cool because Kenny was cool, in the quiet and magnetic way. This was the feeling of progress- _evolution_.

"But I think it looks like a dick, but only if you _really_ look."

Stan choked on his chocolate milk in sudden laughter; it burbled out of his nose, trickled down his chin, and dripped onto his tray.

/

Kenny was good like that, especially at making Stan laugh. He didn't speak often, but when he did, he spoke like regurgitation—sudden, colorful blurts of whatever, whenever. Sometimes, he told Stan vulgar things, things he didn't comprehend until he was entering high school—and even then, Stan only had the _gist_ of what was supposed to happen, how it was supposed to feel, but by freshman year, Kenny had done some of those things. He didn't talk about it—but Stan asked, of course. He explained with blank expressions.

Kenny seemed so mature, between his quiet and his experience, especially in the fifth grade. At the time, the notion of middle school seemed less like school and more like prison: no recess, more figures of authority, limited bathroom passes. Kenny didn't fret though; he wasn't worried about shit, which made him cool, the kind of cool that represented movement, progress—like, _evolution_.

Stan admired his coolness throughout the weeks leading to Christmas. Stark's Pond froze, thick enough to accommodate ice skaters. Sometimes, he'd gaze at Wendy's trail of dark hair as she weaved through the rest, gliding on her skates. Other times, Kenny would be there too— _people watching_ , he said—palm clasped to his cheek like he was bored, but not bored enough to go home. If Stan prodded him enough, he'd tell dirty jokes—the kind that made Stan flush and snicker behind his hand.

Stan was in the median of laughter when Kenny sighed, fingers fidgeting with each other.

"Sometimes, I want to skate too, you know."

It was random—he had just told a joke about thighs, Santa, Thanksgiving turkeys, and what's in between. It was an example of his _regurgitation_ talk. Kenny was shy for once: head down toward the ground, shoes lightly kicking at small heaps of snow. He peeked at Stan from a cover of blonde bangs and blonder lashes, before blushing handsomely, leaving Stan agape and entranced. He was _pretty_ , like Wendy but a little different around the edges. It took Stan millennia to speak

"…Skating, huh?"

"I'm a little jealous."

Kenny didn't have skates. He didn't have snow boots either. Stan glanced at his muddy white sneakers, blatantly damp from the snow.

"Maybe we should go somewhere else. If it'd make you feel better."

"Like, where?"

Stan shrugged, but took Kenny's hand anyway. He didn't protest. The paths of the park were laden with compact snow and overshadowed by barren trees. It was a bad idea, probably—walking through all that indistinguishable white, interlaced by sharp scrawls of branches. They could get lost together, which didn't seem so bad, if it was with Kenny.

But the blonde suddenly requested a closer view of the skaters treading the frozen pond; Stan obliged without inquiring why, tugging his hand to the shores, and lingering like nothing could split them apart. Kenny took a tentative step onto the ice, pausing as his sneakers slipped an inch. He took another, dragging Stan along with him. They both slithered on the ice, hands still connected—Stan laughed until he noticed Kenny's solemn expression.

"Hey, what's wrong?"

"Nothing. I just…"

He averted his eyes; his expression was wind tinged and pink. He was being pretty again.

"This was fun, but you can let go now."

Stan didn't want to—and for a split second in time, he had an instinct to articulate his feelings, to tell Kenny that his hand was warm against the chill of winter, that holding his hand felt natural. He wanted to say that the snowflakes in Kenny's eyelashes made him look handsome, in that kind of ethereal and benign way. He wanted to voice his thoughts: this was _progress,_ that they were finally getting _somewhere_ —but where was somewhere, exactly?

So Stan's fingers slipped from Kenny's palm and digits; he flushed irritatingly bright in their pale environment—but Kenny didn't say anything. He never said a thing, even as Stan slipped on the ice and onto his ass.

/

Kenny kissed him in sixth grade, in the brilliance of spring, in the dark of Clyde Donovan's closet. They were shoved together by whomever, smushed in the dark over a game of Spin-the-Bottle.

Before Stan's eyes could actually adjust to the pitch black, before he could complain about their ridiculous predicament—in a closet, expected to kiss within the next few minutes—Kenny's fingers curled over the ridges of Stan's shoulders. They were gone before Stan could mention them, but they left warm impressions—so warm, it distracted him from the approaching pair of lips that found his precisely, right on target.

It could hardly be called a _kiss_.

Stan remembered the stillness, the awful _push_ of their lips in that dark room. He recalled being puckered beyond belief, like it was his first kiss. He remembered his hands having their own minds, their intentions to wring Kenny's neck. He had strangled Kenny, throttled him, trying—but _not_ trying to kill him. Stan ended the kiss with a shove, remaining flustered and cosmos pink, panting despite the insignificance of it all. He took the hems of his sweater to his lips to hide his coloration, to muffle the sound that left him. Stan scrambled out of the closet faster than he thought was possible.

His heart rattled his chest, his entire body. His legs felt like the stems of plucked flowers—but it was just a kiss, wasn't it? By then, he had kissed Wendy; they were together as a couple, one of the most familiar in their grade, but this was _different_. It could've been how Kenny was so willing, how he had kissed Stan first, without complaint, without difficulty. It could've been his composed and unruffled attitude, even as he languidly rolled off the boxes Stan pushed him to.

But the dilemma—the real dilemma was this: Stan had never kissed a boy before.

So, maybe, he was a tad upset.

Stan didn't talk to Kenny for an entire week, but they never really conversed anyway—not like friends would. No one took notice of Stan's tightly crossed arms, his knitted brows creasing the skin between them, or his deliberate glares in Kenny's direction. Most of his nuisance came from Kenny's indifference, his quiet; he didn't care about the kiss. It didn't seem like anything to him. Stan avoided him until the commencement of the sixth grade baseball season, until he found him in his neighborhood ostensibly daydreaming after practice.

"What are you doing?"

Kenny stood below a blooming tree, straggling branches reaching overhead. He shrugged, "Just thinking about things."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

Stan's cleats were still molded to his feet, despite the discomfort and clack. The pungent smell of freshly cut grass pricked his senses and the sun's rays pierced his eyes; it was enough to make his expression scrunch. Dirt stained his knees and sweat threatened to drip from his brow, from clumped strands of hair adhering to his skin. His hand brushed over them, wet and icky.

"We need to talk."

Kenny blinked, gestured with a curt incline of his skull; he looked cool, like _progress_.

"Come here then."

Stan approached in a few long strides, but still kept his distance. Kenny stood next to the tree like it was an altar, staring up at the soft pink as if it were stained glass. His fingers touched the bark, a carving with the letters K and M. His azure irises fell to it and Stan looked too, until curiosity compelled him to speak.

"Those your initials?"

"Mhm. I did this forever ago. The fourth grade, I think."

It had only been two years. Stan sighed, changed the subject, "Last week, at Clyde's, you kissed me."

Kenny looked up again, like he had to remember, "I did." There were blossoms in his hair, adorning his bangs. Attractive, but distracting. Stan cleared his throat, puberty aching into his voice.

"That was really fucked up, what you did."

"Oh yeah?" But Kenny's tone didn't chide; it didn't break. Puberty didn't fuck him like that. He peered at Stan with perplexity wrenching his expression, nudged his hand with his own; he didn't notice how it had left the coarse bark of the tree. Sunlight flickered through the petals and chartreuse leaves above and into the blonde's eyes, glimmering like summer swimming pools.

He murmured, "It was just a kiss."

There was an instant of parted lips searching for the comeback, the right words; there was unsteady eye contact, convergence and divergence. Then, Stan lunged for his mouth with pursed lips. The expanse between them was larger than Stan remembered; he had to reach for Kenny's shoulders clumsily, but quickly—and once he had them in his grasp, he yanked their bodies together. Their lips collided with another vicious feeling of _push_.

He kissed Kenny amid the descending spring blooms—lips taut and unyielding against his infuriatingly softer mouth—and Stan had kissed him with the intent to settle the score, as a reprisal for the incident in Clyde's closet. He kissed him with all his irritation and vexation, brutally mashing their faces together for the sake revenge. But somehow, it softens: Kenny's hands cupped his cheeks and Stan's fingers laced themselves around the nape of the blonde's neck. Stan could taste honey, like the color his skin would become, the faint underlying flavors of other girls' lip-gloss. Stan's thumbs found Kenny's Adam's apple and he pressed, more tenderly than he had in the past. The blonde broke away from him.

Kenny's skin was honey hued beneath in the meager shade of the blossoming tree; he lacked any hint of flustered pink. When he spoke, the facets of his expression were blank, his tone curious and slightly apathetic, "You're not mad at me anymore, are you?"

"You noticed?"

"It was hard not to."

Stan flinched—his cheeks inundated with a brilliant crimson hue. He tensed, his shoulders rose and hunched. He stammered:

"You didn't say anything?"

Kenny smiled like sadness, rouge blooms slipping from his hair—but Stan interjected before he could even imagine speaking.

"Don't kiss me again."

Kenny's signature head tilt gave a puzzled look; he inquired, "But… you kissed me?"

"Because _you_ kissed _me_ first, Kenny!"

Stan reminded Kenny that he had a smart, pretty _girlfriend_ , that he was in a committed _relationship_ , that this whole kissing fiasco was technically _cheating_ , and that Kenny—despite the sun's gleam floating in his vividly bewildered blue eyes and the sun's belligerent rays casting an angelic halo around all his orange—was a _heathen_.

/

Kenny maintained that _heathen_ status as the years passed, but Stan never said anything. He fucked girls lovingly, then left them—he never committed and he was never attached. Other people gossiped and blathered about that bad habit of his in particular, but Stan didn't, for however long. He thought that might've mattered to Kenny one day, but it seemed like nothing mattered to him—he stayed quiet and enigmatic, never voicing his desires but always acting on them. He'd touch Stan's elbow if he wanted the rest of his fries, or his apple juice, or anything.

He'd touch girls right above the curve of their hip if he wanted sex; he never gripped, just let his fingers dance there. It was a practice that was more apparent during high school, or as they entered high school—Stan can't really remember. But he does remember losing Kenny in high school, to the masses. Their classes diverted down two different paths, their time together shortened and torn apart.

There were kids from nearby small towns, too small to have their own high school. The student population swelled past anything Stan had ever seen in reality. Halls were full, classes were full—Stan felt like he saw someone new almost every day. Lunches were split into sections; Kenny never appeared in Stan's lunch, not with Kyle or Cartman—but he floated around the cafeteria in the form of gossip. People were always talking about Kenny: his lack of wealth, his beauty, his mystery and none of it was news to Stan.

But he listened nonetheless, palm cupping one cheek. Somewhere down the line, after enough he heard enough rumors, a nostalgic ache prodded at the ventricles of his heart.

Stan missed him, for however long.

/

Their mouths—Kenny's and Stan's—didn't reunite until the spring of their high school junior year, when baseball conditioning ended and the official season began. That semester, Stan's batting average began to ascend past the point of "good." That semester, Stan had physical education with Kenny for sixth period.

They didn't really get to talk. They were too preoccupied with dodging red rubber balls, climbing thick, prickly ropes, and jogging chilly miles on the track outside. It wasn't like Stan didn't _look_ ; he paid so much attention to Kenny, to the way his hair clung to his forehead after a good mile, the way he laughed at whatever with vivid smiles. He had grown since middle school, Stan noticed: he was taller, but shorter, his skin was a smidgen darker from the love of the sun, and his voice—the _depth_ was novel.

Moles peppered his body— on the curve of his spine, the breadth of his shoulders, in the crevasse of his collarbone; Stan discerned those details in the locker room, changing. He wasn't supposed to look then, not when Kenny was slipping out of his jeans and into his gym shorts in front of everyone. Nevertheless, Stan casted trivial glances toward Kenny as sweat resulting from workouts and exertion rolled down his lithe body in beads.

But when Stan had kissed him so _laboriously_ , he had stared—stargazed. It was only the two of them among the resounding walls of the locker room.

"I heard you and Bebe were _involved_."

New rumors declared that Bebe Stevens rebounded with Kenny, the infamous Kenny McCormick; Stan couldn't imagine all that blonde, sweating, and moaning. His fingers in her curls, her nails digging into his back.

Over the curve of his honeyed shoulder, Kenny gave him a _look_ , like he knew what Stan was thinking. He stripped his gym shirt (scrawled in Sharpie: Kenneth M.) from his damp body like one would unpeel a banana. Stan could hear the peel from his place by the empty showers, over the dripping. Kenny threw his shirt in his locker and Stan continued.

"Clyde was like, losing his shit or whatever. He said he's gonna fight you."

The gym shorts were next, tossed in his locker with a simple flick of the hand. Stan briefly noted another brown birthmark blemishing the back of Kenny's thigh. Stan was marveling at its resemblance, possibly to Arkansas, when Kenny groaned, "Shut up." He was plastered with a scowl, even as he slid into his holed jeans and slipped into his wrinkled shirt.

"We didn't fuck. She's just saying that. You're saying that too."

"I'm not—I don't mean it like-"

Kenny huffed, pacing past him, " _Heathen_ , right?"

"Kenny, wait-"

Stan caught the blonde by the wrist, harshly, but he didn't mean to be so rough. He was on the verge of an apology, words on the tip of his tongue—until he realized how insignificant Kenny's wrist was, how they hadn't touched in years. Kenny's fingers were clenched in a minor fist—that was the size of heart, palpitating within his body. He could feel it if he pressed hard enough. He let his thumb ease into the underside of Kenny's wrist, as if his skin was the flesh of a peach—and the blonde gasped his name.

"Stan."

"I didn't mean it like that. I was just saying…"

His argument trailed off as he peered down at what he had done. Stan found the protruding veins lining his arms, emphasizing his vehement hold of his friend; he found the subtle contrast between their hues, Kenny's mellow tan underlined by Stan's paler complexion. He glanced back at Kenny, his concern vivid in his eyes. Stan let himself gawk, even as Kenny twisted in his grasp.

"Bebe's lying, you know."

Kenny's eyes ambled to meet Stan's, from their previous slant toward the floor; his lips curtly lowered into a frown, then rose to a one-sided smile.

"You know."

Kenny's irises were so in love with the color blue; there were lighter strands reaching out from his pupils, darker variations of color hidden near the peripheries. His eyes were oceans wide, cavernous, restless scenes into another world maybe, somewhere far from South Park that Stan couldn't even fathom the distance. Stan blinked in a sequence, like an epiphany.

Kenny tried to roll his wrist in vain again; he spoke quietly, in a tone that was too gentle, "You can let go now."

And suddenly, Stan was back in the fifth grade wanting and feeling, but never _doing_.

"No." Each finger flexed over Kenny's wrist; Stan could feel Kenny's pulse quicken as he pulled him closer, as he murmured dangerously quiet, "I don't want to."

Stan dove for Kenny's mouth.

His free hand had gripped the nape of Kenny's neck, holding him in place as their lips ached against each other—no softness, no movement, no _progress_ , just push. Kenny didn't resist the kiss, but he stayed frustratingly stagnant; it took an eternity, an entire passing period to coax him open to very slight undulations and exchanges of whose lips were between whose—but absolutely no tongue and no touch. They kept their hands locked around wrists and flat against each others' cheeks. Nonetheless, Stan was breathless by the time they parted, a sound of softness echoing in their seclusion. He was flushed, one clammy palm slipping against a locker, another beside Kenny's hip—he had the blonde trapped, frazzled, agape, and _fuck_ , he wanted more.

He nipped at Kenny's lips again with just as much intensity and enthusiasm, but a curt hand to his chest propelled him back against another wall of lockers. Kenny looked like he was going to heave or cry or both; an explanation was necessary.

"I haven't kissed you in forever."

Stan advanced on him again, gently this time. Kenny's hand reappeared, over his sternum—fingers clenched the fabric of his shirt. Kenny bit his lip and closed his eyes, skull lolling back to rap against the lockers. They were subtle and quiet, pants and rustles and sounds of metallic contact; Stan's murmur was the same volume, barely audible.

"I wanted to remember the taste."

(Honey, like his skin, fainter hints of other girls—their lip-gloss—and a new inkling of cigarettes)

Stan nudged their foreheads together benignly, making their bangs mingle, watching Kenny's diaphanous lashes flutter in bemusement. He pressed his thumbs into the blonde's feeble sides, discerning that twitch of lips, that conceding hiss in response to the touch. Kenny spoke again, but his voice was a mere whisper. Stan's eyes fell to his mouth, the quiver of his abused lips.

"What the fuck."

/

This kiss was just another secret, another blushing memory he kept to himself, scrunched against the walls of his cranium—until he told Kyle, mistakenly, in a rant of other things: his father, baseball, how technically, Wendy doesn't know he cheated on her with Kenny's mouth.

"Wait, what?"

"What?"

"What you just said-"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"You bastard! You fucking kissed Kenny!"

Kyle shoved his shoulder, hard enough for Stan to fall off his bed. He landed on carpet with a grunt:

"It's not like I murdered him. Why are you so mad?"

"Because you put all your _shit_ in danger because of a kiss: our friendship with Kenny, the girlfriend you spent years puking over and bitching about—are you fucking stupid?"

Stan rolled over, onto his stomach.

"I like him, I think."

"As in… _like_ -like?"

"It might be a crush."

His tone jumped an octave, " _Might_ be?"

"More or less. I don't know. I just—I want him."

Kyle practically screeched, " _Sexually_?"

"I want some part of him, I don't know."

Kyle groaned, head falling into a cradle of his palms. "So you are fucking stupid, I knew it. All these years and I fucking knew it."

"Listen Kyle, I'm just not sure."

A pillow plopped down on the back Stan's head as Kyle sighed, "Maybe you should—I don't fucking know—figure it out, huh?" He took the opportunity to snuggly wrap the pillow around his skull, padding his ears, and muffling his voice.

"I know."

"You can't just do things on a—a _whim_ , Stan. We had that discussion after you broke up with Wendy over chicken nuggets. Didn't we talk about that?"

"Yes, we talked about that. I know."

"And you could've told me about your random-ass feelings towards Kenny before you… you know."

In retrospect, if Stan really took his time to think it over—feelings and all—he figured that they weren't really that random, not in the scheme of things. But he huffed anyway.

" _Fucking Communication_. I know."

"No, you don't."

Kyle slipped off the bed to sit on Stan's back, compressing ribs and the organs they protect compactly. He pinched the nape of Stan's neck, which prompted a hiss of disapproval, but the redhead probably didn't care. Long moments traversed over them in quiet, but in relative comfort. When Stan decided to speak, Kyle sighed in vexation.

"Kyle."

"What?"

"You think I fucked everything?"

Another moment. Another sigh.

"Not everything. Not yet. You haven't fucked everything yet."

/

Stan thought about the concept of seriously _liking_ Kenneth McCormick for a week and a half every morning before he went to school, between over-milked, soggy cereal and brushed teeth. He was only close to being certain— _dangerously_ certain—when Kenny stopped avoiding him in gym class, when they were seated on the sidelines because they had ousted each other in a game of dodge ball. Accidently, Stan had cracked Kenny in the face with a ball—and it was an accident; he just hadn't said sorry yet. There was a cherry red splotch outlining the blonde's honeyed cheek and a heavy blob of guilt aching in Stan's chest—but he didn't apologize.

Kenny beat him to it.

"Sorry."

"What for?"

"I made you upset. You're mad at me."

There was an intimation of indifference in Kenny's tone, a kind of apathy that made Stan cringe. Disgust laced his words.

"I'm not. Is that what you think?"

Kenny didn't answer.

" _I_ should be sorry—I _am_ sorry. I hurt you."

Stan spotted the splotch of red staining the blonde's expression. The little lines of the rubber ball were zigzagged across his skin. He wanted to touch, to placate; he had fingers prepped by Kenny's temple, ready to descend and caress—but he didn't. He let his hand drop and smack against the slick wood of the gym floor.

Kenny shrugged, "Not so much." He poked the blemish himself, and bright, buttercup-pink bloomed sunshine-golden under the pad of his finger. "I'm okay."

"The kiss too. I'm-" Stan was a little too loud, but the slap of rubber balls pounding the floors, the walls, and teenage bodies made him discreet. He quieted himself and tried again, "I'm sorry about that—a little. I'm sorry I didn't ask for your permission, and uh, I was too much, maybe. But I'm not sorry I kissed you."

Kenny had a conglomeration of worry and weary battling on the planes of his expression. His bottom lip quivered; his voice creaked under the pressure Stan provided.

"Stan, what do you want from me?"

Like that—donned in a plain shirt and basketball shorts, apprehensively poised, but still vulnerable and tangible in depth of his eyes, the full frown of his lips—Kenny was so handsome. Stan had another urge to touch, to cup his cheeks with such remarkable tenderness all to assure him that this wouldn't hurt—but he didn't.

Instead, he muttered a reply, "Nothing serious."

He thought about Kyle: _you haven't fucked everything yet._

Instead, he murmured, "Just…just a little more."

/

Kenny didn't have to give Stan anything. He could have said no. He could've told him to fuck off. He could've punched Stan in his fucking face—he _did_ sound like he was making some kind of lewd _proposition_. He could've mentioned the predicament of Stan's smart, _pretty_ _girlfriend_ , how they're still involved in a _committed_ relationship, and the importance of maintaining a friendship and not ruining it with kisses and touches and emotions.

But Kenny gave him more anyway, for whatever reason—Stan was grateful for the _progress_ : opportunities to let his eyes linger for too long, to push back blonde bangs with gentle fingers, to kiss chastely in quiet spaces. More was good for a while, until it wasn't. Stan longed for more of Kenny's attention, more of Kenny's time, more savored evolution.

But asking Kenny to accompany him to the batting cages was _hard_. Stan didn't know how to approach him. He didn't know whether to be charming and suave or be subtle, like the idea of going to the batting cages wasn't a date. It was; Stan had envisioned gorging themselves on cheap but fun baseball food: hot dogs and popcorn. They'd laugh in the arcade, sneaking lesser kisses behind the glow and music of machines. At the end of the night, before closing, he'd pay for a hundred pitches for them to share. He'd demonstrate the first fifty, feeling Kenny's blue eyes swarm over him. Then he'd show Kenny how to hit a baseball properly; his fingers would curl around Kenny's hands, teaching him how to swing correctly in the spotlights—but then it'd all about the hips, the right rotation and thrust when he swung and—

Stan ended up going to _uncomfortable, heat-ridden_ places if he thought about the batting cage date too much; he didn't know if it was right, if it was the _more_ he truly wanted. He decided, after Kenny agreed to go—because he had never been before—that he wouldn't touch Kenny's meager waist or the feeble jut of his hips. He'd touch his hands, platonic and neutral locations of Kenny's body.

But Stan didn't get to touch them that much; Kenny was just content with sitting stagnant on a nearby bench and observing Stan's attempts to bat at incoming baseballs. He wasn't interested in the games at the arcade. He was fine with snacking on Cheetos from the vending machine until his fingers turned powdery and undeniably orange like the rest of him. He said he'd watch; in fact, he promised.

The first ten pitches were warm-up, to get the kinks out of Stan's body, to make him sweat. He didn't exchange his knitted cap for a helmet until he felt clamminess crawling down his forehead and heat near the hems of his hat. He called for Kenny.

"You're watching, right?"

"Yeah. You look good."

Stan swiveled, lips curving into a smile. Kenny reclined on one elbow, crumpled Cheeto bag between his fingers.

"I know, but thanks anyway."

He heard Kenny snort. The pitches that followed the first ten got Stan in the _groove_. The baseballs that reflected off his bat in an undignified manner vexed him, made the bat slide in his clammy palms, and gave him fuel to strike the next pitches exigently. His good hits—the ones that smacked the bat with that _sound_ —induced whistles from Kenny, prompted a corner of his lips to tug into a smirk. This felt good, like the bruising forming on his side.

A hundred pitches always left blood. Blisters popped open after the fiftieth baseball struck the inside of his bat and Stan had to force himself not to think about the pain. He flexed his fingers in front of Kenny afterward, making an exhibition of the blood and pus seeping from his palms like ooze. Stan thought they were cool, similar to battle scars; his coach thought they were signs of hard work; Kenny just thought they were gross.

He gingerly touched Stan's fingers, frowning, eyebrows drawn over pretty blue eyes.

"So, maybe we should go home. I can drive, since your hands are…bleeding."

Stan was only a little disappointed, but this was like, _the first date._ There would be others.

He started planning future dates where he'd buy Kenny dinner, something he never had before. They'd watch television in the garage before kissing languidly—not deep, just romantic. They'd see the Rockies play before the end of the season—like they could _afford_ that.

Somehow, Stan managed Wendy and Kenny simultaneously, like he juggled football and baseball. He coddled them both with study dates and batting cage outings. He could handle the stress of Wendy trying to bore through him, the ambiguity of being in the same vicinity as Kenny. It was easy to tell Wendy he loved her, after so many times—but with Kenny, it was different; Kenny—his messy blonde hair, his vibrant blue eyes, the way he kept calm and quiet—was definitely different. Liking a boy the way he liked Kenny was more different than he thought it would be.

Every touch was indefinite, either too languid and awkward or too fast and unaffectionate. They moved slow, much slower than he would have with any girl—but Stan always coveted for more. New and soft caresses to the cheek and softer kisses to the pulse of the wrist had Kenny curious. He questioned their status after a spontaneous batting cage visit; Stan had lounged back in his lap, over the ridges of his knees, and Kenny leered over him.

It was just about sunset, just about time for the spotlights to flash over the cages. The mountains of South Park always ate at the descending sun. An indigo shadow had encroached their space—Kenny's and Stan's—and suddenly, they were doused in subtle dark. The breezes felt cooler. Lights from the arcade bounced off Kenny's skin; blues, violets, and pinks flashed and hovered over him, tinged the outlines of his lips as he spoke.

"What do you think?"

"…What?"

Stan might've been distracted by looking up into the blue of Kenny's eyes, how it almost matched the deep blue of their surroundings. Or maybe, he was infatuated with the faint tug of his pink lips, how he couldn't discern a smile or a frown; he could've been enamored with the way Kenny touched him, index finger slightly sweeping along the skin of his forehead, through damp, dark bangs. Behavior as gentle as this took weeks to pry out of Kenny, but it was well worth the time.

"What do you think we are, Stan? You and me."

Stan couldn't call what they had a relationship, since he was immersed in another one. They hadn't really gone out on an actual date; they hadn't _really_ kissed and they never came close to fucking or doing anything he could compare to something tangible. So Stan smiled awkwardly.

"We're a _thing_."

Kenny hummed in agreement, maybe; his lashes batted beside blonde strands that fell forward. An unknown something twitched at his mouth, but he stayed silent for a moment or two. By the time Kenny spoke, Stan had let his eyes close; he was on the peripheries of sleep, but the blonde flicked his forehead.

"Are you gonna take a nap here?"

"I feel like it."

"You shouldn't. We shouldn't even be like this. People can see."

Stan tossed anyway, so his cheek was smashed against Kenny's lower thigh. The fingers that were teasing his bangs were now ghosting over the shell of his ear, pushing strands of dark hair behind it. A few silent moments passed before Stan flipped back to his previous position, looking up at the endearing amusement of Kenny's expression, the separated pink lips, and long blonde lashes.

"You just don't know what you want."

Kenny hummed again, soft and low, and Stan tried to discern the melody that was lulling him to sleep again. Fingers grazed over his scalp, then slipped to the skin of cheek, tender-like. They fell lower to the expanse of the throat, but barely touched— _ticklish_ , Stan recalled.

Abruptly, Kenny's gentle fingers left Stan's skin; his hums ceased. Stan opened his eyes to find a dark magenta blush tingeing Kenny's honey cheeks, his sought attention centered on someone else. Stan's vision glided over to the notorious Craig Tucker, his fuming eyes glaring under knitted eyebrows, his ferocious fucking grimace.

Stan grasped Kenny's hand promptly, thumb pressing against the warmth of his palm; Kenny peered at him with the saddest of expressions, the most nominal of frowns, blonde lashes awning over pretty blue eyes. Stan's thumb slipped to the center of his wrist, where his pulse resided. He felt it once, then twice—and murmured with a placating voice that simmered in his trachea:

"It doesn't matter if people know we're a thing, Kenny."

He'd like to think he said it loud enough for Craig to hear, but he was already pacing past the arcade and the concession stand in lengthy, even strides—he has such infuriatingly long limbs. It's how he can rip a ball past any average batter before he can blink, how he can lob fastballs breaching the cusp of hundred, even at practice, after a thousand pitches.

Stan's not his fan; he doesn't like thinking about the notion of Craig Tucker—his pessimistic and cynical aura that makes things that linger too long beside him die, the way he _demands_ attention wordlessly. Even then, Kenny's eyes followed him; he provoked immediate progress from Kenny with a simple _look_.

Kenny's lips quivered with undeclared words—the same way Stan's heartstrings did in the chasm of his chest—and as much as he wanted to kiss and placate, he didn't. Stan's thumb ran over Kenny's pulse again, feeling it quicken and calm—but other than that, he watched—stargazed. In that indigo blue, Kenny's eyes were so dark; constellations could've sprouted in them.

"Kenny, let's go."

/

Emotions and desires evolve—and suddenly, Kenny's in Stan's home, in Stan's bed, in Stan's arms. He's more in love, maybe—if that's what it is—he's more infatuated with every facet of Kenny: his azure eyes, his pink lips, and his honey skin that's more caramel from the sun. He's bolder and braver; it's easier to press his lips to Kenny's shoulder, his cheek, or his hastening pulse pushing against his wrist. Currently, he's shyly considering the notion of lapping his way into Kenny's mouth, convening their tongues, and melding their lips. He can imagine the gasp, the sound of mouths coalescing tenderly. The thought is _warm_ and _delectable_ , pooling under Stan's stomach and worming through his intestines.

He thinks—he _knows_ —it'll be the first step into other and better notions that he can't think about so coyly. He'll yearn for shameless touches in sensitive and personal places, harder and urgent kisses; he'll desire progression and evolution until their connection is definite and certain. He'll want gasps and moans of names between wanton sounds of culmination; he'll want more touches, more kisses, _more_ _love_.

In the end, he will always want more.

/

 _Look at all those fucking dashes…Anyway._

 _This is longer, but worse, I think. I don't know where I'm going, honestly, but I never do._

 _Tell me how you feel._


	4. Chapter 4

/

DogPoo Petuski knows he's a nobody— Eric Cartman had said it best: he's more of a prop. It's defined in his meager arms, his flaxen hair, the way his face sinks below the grime and purple of the circles under his eyes. He looks like a sick kid, _cancerous_. He looks like he's dying. What he really wants to do is grow.

All of this is something that stuns his mother, who tells his dad, who asks, "Do we need to talk?"

DogPoo says, "It's okay."

For him, the realization came in the fourth grade. At a certain age, you just figure it out. You just know. What you can try to do is change, but until then, you're you.

/

When DogPoo Petuski thinks of Craig Tucker, he thinks of crumbling mountains and volcano eruptions and powerful, vehement, defining moments. If you would've asked him years ago what he thought of Craig, he would've called him a somebody. A word that would've come to mind is _stoic_. He would've possibly used the word _cool_.

Now, Craig is all heartless fury; he's indiscriminately infuriated at every portion of the world, like he's the only one who has something to be mad about in South Park. He has a distorted frown, a fucked up face, this arsenal of tough guy antics.

DogPoo got this brief understanding of him in the transition between winter and spring, because baseball conditioning began in January.

"Hey, Petuski."

Craig spoke to him first, at lunch. He only sat with Clyde and Token, and occasionally Tweek, whenever he wasn't paranoid as hell. So Craig had to turn around and tap DogPoo's shoulder, without hesitance. Typically, people believe that DogPoo's shoulders are dirty. He is DogPoo Rolling in Shit Petuski. So at the time, Craig's decisiveness was unbelievable.

His table manners were too.

He gnawed on a pencil instead of his food, subdued words leaving his mouth simultaneously, "What's it like, having no one notice you?"

Craig had the most serious face then (if DogPoo removed the pencil sliding between his teeth), but his dark, lengthy lashes had batted against each other like he thought of something annoyingly sweet. That could've been the cue Tucker's gang was looking for because Clyde furrows his brows.

He inquired: "What's it like, having no one on the entire team like you?"

Token laughed: "What's it like, having no one love you?"

It was like that, for a while.

The lunchtime bullying went on daily two weeks, but DogPoo didn't tell anyone because that would've made him a "pussy for life." Every now and then, Clyde would push his head into his tatter-tots and Token would say something stupid like, "Mashed potatoes!" They efficiently played off each other's negative energy.

The bullying ended when Craig asked the same question during lunch again: "What's it like, having no one notice you?" He was serious again, evident from the dark melancholy in his eyes. He wasn't chewing on pencil this time, so the words were less irate and much clearer. Token and Clyde didn't say a thing, like this was nothing, like they hadn't spent two weeks mocking him. DogPoo was pissed.

"Fuck you guys. I mean, I _have_ family. I _have_ friends. They notice me."

"Friends?" Craig's upper lip barely moved, "Who?"

"Um… Kenny McCormick likes me okay. Wendy Testaburger says hi sometimes. And Tweek Tweak has never been mean to me, not once."

Craig's left eyebrow rose the _slightest_ bit.

And after that conversation, Tucker's gang started treating him better, mostly because Craig didn't bother with him anymore. DogPoo thought he had gained some kind of respect from him, for mouthing back. More weeks passed—baseball conditioning ended and DogPoo was still this scrawny, meager twig. He could run and catch, but he was a nobody still. Some juniors on the team promised that an individual's _prime_ baseball body comes with age.

Craig said, "Stop thinking about it. Puberty is over. You're almost a grown man."

DogPoo thought: _asshole_.

Somehow, Craig had approached him before practice one day, asked if he wanted to throw a couple. It might've seemed like a set-up, but DogPoo had agreed. He had said, "Sure." And Craig, that shithead, he didn't say anything until he complained about DogPoo's aspirations to just be a little taller.

/

To this day, DogPoo doesn't know what prompted Craig to _blossom_ to him of all people. Between afternoon practices and warm-up pitches, he started talking about the romance philosophy, his personal philosophy. He didn't call it a philosophy; that word is too meaningful for Craig, that fucked up macho man.

The way he speaks is very one-dimensional.

He said, "Everything's about being in the right place at the right time. It's how stories happen."

That's pretty much all Craig said. The rest is inferred: how a story doesn't happen if people don't align in the perfect place, how anyone's place anywhere could mean anything. DogPoo got to thinking about what could possibly be the right place—because South Park definitely isn't it. He got to thinking about what the right time would be, and figured that probably, they're both impatient people. Craig seemed like an impatient guy, considering his everlasting scowl and his awful attitude.

Then again, he could've been the most enduring and tolerant young man on the planet—but fuck, DogPoo didn't know. He got this feeling that Craig isn't who he seems to be when he grabbed his absent attention by tossing a baseball at DogPoo's stomach, _benignly_.

It was immensely weaker than what he could actually throw. DogPoo was grateful for that because Craig's been known to leave bruises and blood. He could've effortlessly ruptured DogPoo's spleen if he really tried.

"Pay attention."

DogPoo nodded. He tossed the baseball back in a nice, hill-like slope. Craig caught it. This was the process. This was simple. They were throwing a ball and catching it in their mitts: easy.

"So what's it like, having no one notice you?"

Ah. The golden fucking question is asked again. DogPoo is too preoccupied with bending for Craig's unintentionally sinker to snort. He apologized, briefly, and DogPoo is astonished because he had never heard Craig apologize for anything. DogPoo was stunned and the ball smacked into glove without him having to move and Craig said, "So?"

It was a dumb question and DogPoo didn't want to respond, but Craig was opening up to him, right? So why not reciprocate?

DogPoo inhaled, "I guess it's like being alone… Duh." He chuckled, but Craig didn't. "Then sometimes, it feels like I'm nothing. It really hurts. But I'm used to it. Being a nobody."

Craig nods as if DogPoo's sentiments are communal. But that's just silly. He's Craig Tucker.

DogPoo tosses the ball back, finally.

"Is there someone that you want to notice you?"

That question was _unforeseen_ and a tad bit personal, but at this point, DogPoo didn't mind. He shrugged, catching the ball Craig throws. "Is there someone that _you_ want to notice _you_?"

Craig was winding up, then—but he had stopped as his kneecap met his chest. He had these squinted eyes, from the sunlight easing under his cap perhaps. Craig said something like, "That doesn't matter." Or, "That's irrelevant." Or, "Maybe."

The point is, DogPoo couldn't really understand him; Craig started slinging balls fast and in curvy lines. He didn't say sorry for any toss that required ample movement from DogPoo, so it must've been intentional. Thankfully, Craig wasn't full speed and it wasn't too intense, but DogPoo had to lunge for the ball, occasionally. Sometimes, he had to jump or slide.

When DogPoo stumbled over his feet in an attempted catch, Craig threw a hand up. He waved.

He mumbled, "That's enough." His tongue was pink between his lips, skimming between a cuspid and an incisor. He loudly sucked there, before moving to the bottom row of teeth, where the slanted and crooked ones resided. DogPoo thought: Once upon a time, Craig Tucker had perfect teeth. And he took a step back, large enough to step on a small carcass.

There was a dead bird on the field, then. Usually, it's just goose shit. Or dog shit, sporadically, ironically.

Now, there's another dead bird near the fence.

Today, DogPoo is a right fielder.

The team is supposed to be split. They're supposed to be _skirmishing_ or whatever Coach said. But DogPoo isn't paying attention; he's just looking into the dead bird's beady, black eyes—he still has them. His chest is gone, though; he can see the tiny bird ribcage and the tiny bird ribs pertaining to it. His wings are spread and DogPoo cocks his head as each ruffled feather trembles in the breeze.

Craig creeps up behind him and DogPoo knows it's him by the manner in which he says, "What the fuck are you doing?"

DogPoo points to the bird.

Nonchalantly, Craig Tucker proposes, "You should get it, Petuski. Throw it over the fence."

"Why me?"

"Don't you like that kind of thing?"

DogPoo reply stays tacit, but he looks at Craig until his face twitches with a grimace.

"Just toss it."

"I _really_ don't wanna touch it, actually."

Craig sighs, "Whatever."

It's like, his favorite word or something. He should shack up with those Goth kids sometime.

"You don't wanna touch what, Dog Shit?"

Billy Turner, a freshman, is being nosy from left field, near Coach. DogPoo should say, "It's nothing."

What he does say is, "Come over here and look for yourself."

So Billy jogs all the way to right field from left field. He sees the bird and he pants, "Oh. A dead bird." He looks at DogPoo. "Did you touch it?"

"No."

He looks at Craig. "Did _you_ touch it?"

"Hell no."

Billy makes this face, like what's wrong with you? He mutters, "Someone has to touch it."

And suddenly, all the players currently on the field are padding over to the bird. Stan drops his bat; Eric drops his catcher's mask. When they arrive, they make little comments like, "Why is the world so cruel?"

Stan Marsh says, "Circle of life."

Eric Cartman says, "Gawd! He fucking reeks!"

Craig exhales.

And suddenly (again), the whole baseball team is pouring out of the dugout; they're trotting to right field in an awkward beeline like they've never fucking played baseball before. DogPoo should say, "It's no biggie guys. Nothing to see here. Just some dead bird. He's rotting. He smells." Everyone else should agree. But he leaves that responsibility to Craig, who doesn't fulfill it in the least. In fact, he steps aside. He lets the team rush over and huddle around a dead bird, when they could be playing baseball.

Fuck, DogPoo should've thrown the bird over the fence when he had the chance.

Clyde whistles, "Oh, well, would you look at that?"

A junior shakes his head because it's such a shame.

And maybe it is, maybe this dead bird is tragedy embodied. Fanatical South Park bullshit hasn't happened in months, so maybe they're looking for the similar bitter drama in everything.

Even Coach and his fat fucking crazy-ass, _fatter than Eric Cartman will ever be_ —he struts his humungous _ass_ from left field to come look at this dead bird. The team makes a path for him. He has these spindly old man legs that aren't proportionate to his beer belly, so he has to waddle in among the team.

Then, he plucks at his silver mustache with his index finger and thumb, his right eye narrowed and twitching. His left eye is opened so extensively, all anyone can see is white. When he speaks—somehow he has this strong, filthy, southern accent in South Park, Colorado—everyone on the team turns their heads.

They transfer their attention from the bird, which they've named Ivan, which is a stupid name according to Cartman, which is something that Kenneth McCormick would do, apparently. No one asks Stan Marsh to expound, but he does anyway: "Kenny would name dead things, you know, shit that's not living." But no one wants to know, so this statement earns him this unified groan from the team because he's such a dumb, love-struck teenager, it's disgusting. Craig Tucker looks like he'll kill him in cold blood, on top of things, but that face is common now. Nonetheless, the team's attention is wordlessly given to the coach, whose lips are pursed to the point of pallor, which is obvious due to his splotchy red face.

"That's some fucked up shit boys."

DogPoo thinks of how school faculty members can't cuss around children—how they're all perpetually children; Coach could be reported for this. But as long as he's not cussing _at_ the kids, you see. That's different than cussing _to_ the kids and it's healthier for them: the kids.

"Real fucked up…"

Coach glances at everyone, momentarily, before stumbling back to left field, silent. People whisper.

"Oh, shit."

"Welp. We're doomed."

Tweek cries, "Just give him a moment! Y-You know how he gets."

They all _know_. So the baseball team stays motionless in their dead bird circle, but some of the fielders are fiddling with their gloves, the loose and unraveling strings. DogPoo sure is, until Clyde slaps his wrist. He whines.

"Okay, moment of silence for the fucking bird-"

Some _smart-ass_ whispers, "His name is Ivan."

Clyde practically gags, " _Shut the hell up!_ Who gives a fuck?"

Tweek timidly points at coach. He twitches. His shoulder pops up against his ear.

Stan sighs in exasperation, pinching his brow. Then he exclaims, "If we give the damn bird a damn moment of silence, if we go back to our places on the field and if we play baseball for once, maybe he won't be such a freak."

Everyone shrugs.

"And— _for once_ —Clyde came up with good idea."

Tweek stammers, "Uh, w-well."

Clyde chuckles, "Thank you, Mister Marsh, for your _honorable_ praise." And his laugh immediately morphs into a hiss, " _You fucking asshole_."

"Come on. Bow your heads-"

"Ladies, fuck what you're doing."

Ah, it's Coach from across the field. All the held breaths dissipate into soft groans and disappointed sighs.

Cartman growls, " _Goddammit_!"

Coach is wobbling back to the huddle; the boys are naturally making a path for his fat ass. His scrawny legs are shaking in his khakis. He's sniffling. Everyone looks at him expectantly, like what he's going to say isn't nutty.

"I'm," Coach sputters, "I'm going to bury him."

The team is still huddled around this bitch-ass dead bird, Ivan; Eric Cartman is still behind DogPoo, who's still next Clyde Donovan, who's across from Craig Tucker, who is somehow standing beside Stan Marsh. Tweek Tweak is in the front, small and wide-eyed. Everyone acts like this is the most somber shit—this poor dead bird, Ivan! But secretly, the team is pissed; DogPoo knows because Eric Cartman mutters uncomfortably hot breath on the back of his neck, "Bullshit, man."

Coach points at _each and every_ player, tears turning his eyes subtle red and watery. It's hard to look. "I want you all to run twenty laps around the school," he says. "Fuck the skirmish. Today's about endurance."

When people witness terrible and inevitable things, they tend to close their eyes very softly, as if they were falling asleep; Clyde does that. Someone quietly hums that tune that plays when good soldiers die.

"Do it for the bird."

/

The team finishes the laps earlier than anticipated. They all pool around the sunlit field but Coach tells them to take the night off. "Rest up," he says. He's still sniveling. No one asks where Ivan is buried and Coach doesn't say. People complain.

"What the hell?"

"He does know that we have a game this week, right?"

"We can't just go home."

Clyde extends himself from his previously cramped position and wheezes, "Fuck him. Let's go to Shoddy."

Then his hands clasp on his knees again. He rasps, "When was baseball ever about _endurance_?"

No one answers him, but he and Eric Cartman hyperventilate in sync. The team looks at each other for confirmation, too tired to talk, but Stan groans. All eyes are on him, on his damp, sweaty brow and his upturned lips. Surprisingly, he looks like a parallel universe Craig. Abruptly, he says, "I don't want to go."

Oh, yeah. Stan Marsh usually doesn't go to the superfluous games at Shoddy. They're too long, he has homework, whatever the fuck—there's always an excuse. But maybe, because the first game of the season is this week or because everyone's begging him to (except Craig), he goes today. Stan groans again, though; Craig turns his nose up, naturally.

All the seniors and juniors reeve up their cars: Mustangs, Camaros, the occasional Ford pick-up truck. They say, "Hop in!" They say, "Get your asses in here!" They do donuts on their way out of the parking lot, which is dangerous, as Tweek cares to mention.

"No shit, Tweek Tweak," but Clyde says his full name so fast, it has to be cordial. He sounds like the noises all these cars make as their doors are unlocked.

"I-I wish they didn't do t-that."

What if they have an accident? What if someone gets hurt? These are only a few of Tweek's voiced concerns.

Craig, the Tweek whisperer, tells him not to stress. It'll be cool. If something happens, they'll probably get a new coach. Somehow, it works for Tweek.

"We'll see you there, okay?"

For some reason, DogPoo rides with Craig and Clyde in the back of some random hitter's truck. This hitter, he plays the band PUP on low volume. It doesn't make sense. The songs are like, out of context.

The whole trip, Clyde pokes at Craig's toned bicep and talks about Kenny. He still wants to beat him up for sleeping with Bebe—no offense, Dog Shit. The rest of the team thinks he should go ahead and fuck him up too, except Dog Shit and Stan obviously—but he didn't mention the plan to them, not really. His legs dangle over the edge of this guy's truck and his eyes are innocently wide, but Craig frowns; he punches Clyde's arm, hard. The thud of his fist maiming Clyde's body is nauseating.

He says, "Don't be stupid."

He says, "Leave him alone."

/

Shoddy Field is the only recreational baseball field in South Park. Every other field needs a reason or a ticket to get into, but at Shoddy, people can just _hang_. It's a fucking dump though. The facilities are falling apart. Back when the South Park High baseball program had momentum, enthused parents constructed Shoddy Field from grit and passion for the game of baseball.

That's about it.

Shoddy Field is also located across the railroad tracks, in the "ghetto" according to Eric Cartman. It's across the street from Kenneth's McCormick house too, but that's a minor detail. Nobody even notices when Kenny appears, except DogPoo Petuski and Stan Marsh and possibly, Craig Tucker. On his elbows, he leans over the brick wall of Shoddy Field, the wall that's half-built and too small. DogPoo waves and Kenny waves back.

Stan meets him, of course. They converse.

"You should stay and watch."

Kenny hums. Stan kisses his cheek, twice, like that'll seal the deal. He leans in to try to kiss Kenny on his mouth, but the blonder boy ducks and dips before Stan can even purse his lips.

"I can't. I'm helping Karen at the shelter today."

Stan catches his wrist, nips at the bronzed vein-ridden pulse, "The fucking animals, huh?" Kenny laughs all cheery-like and Craig breathes in through his nostrils _so loud_ —he reminds DogPoo that he's there too, seeing what he's seeing, apparently. A muscle is working in his jaw. His eyes are dark, foreboding, ominous things. DogPoo thinks that Craig will mention how disgustingly fucking smitten Stan is; he'll make fun of him, surely.

But he just turns and goes to the dugout, wordlessly.

DogPoo is left alone in center field, stuck between studying the flirtations of lovebirds and joining Craig as he stiffly saunters to the rest of the team. It's awkward. Somewhere on the inside, he's dying. They all are.

"Marsh, if you don't leave Kenny alone we'll never start the game!"

/

It's Craig's team versus Stan's team. Or, The Mighty Morphin' Anal Rangers versus The Teenage Mutant FuckFaces.

Both makeshift teams play five innings of unadulterated baseball before the sun descends beneath the Colorado mountains, before everyone is dyed deep, pretty blue in its shadow. The sky is orange near the mountain range and purple at the far ends. In between, the clouds are outlined in an odd gradient of both those colors and DogPoo feel smaller than he actually is.

But it could've been the crowd that makes DogPoo feel tiny. After the game, the team squeezed into same the debilitated dugout. DogPoo gets pushed around like a grocery store cart. It's loud, too. Young men just love to yell.

Stan's team wins for once, so all the players following his lead beg him to come back next week, whenever they do this again. Craig's team isn't upset in general—it's all fun and games—but Craig has a lethally distinct frown. Probably, because he hates Stan, who's all like, "I dunno, guys. I kinda have things to do, you know?"

Like, make out with Kenny.

Everyone's thinking it, but no one says it—and no one's imagining it but DogPoo, because hell, why not? Kenny is pompously blonde, but he's welcoming and warm on the inside, so any kiss with him must be like that. Or it's possible that Stan takes the lead—he's that natural leader type, right? So he takes the lead and holds Kenny's arms; he kisses him like love-struck has a definition, like the word really means something. It's the way everyone wants to be kissed.

DogPoo sighs. He thinks of Craig Tucker folding his arms over chest: _Whatever_.

"Hey now," Clyde crawls out of the dugout instead of using the available concrete steps, and he announces from atop the field, addressing everyone below. He has his professional voice equipped, his newscaster tone: "Remember: a _spanking_ new season of Fuck Fest starts tomorrow before school."

Eric Cartman whoops.

"We've got ourselves a star pitcher, _Tucker, Craig Tucker_ -"

All the sinewy, hairy seniors, and the mature, eager juniors, and the nobody underclassmen clap their palms on Craig's back. His body jolts every time, but he stays indifferent and apathetic. His arms are crossed so tightly. His brows are angled over his eyes so fiercely. His mouth is twisted in this vile shape, like a frown but infinitely worse—and has it really always been this way?

DogPoo thinks, shit, lighten up a little.

Meanwhile, teammates whistle and holler like Craig has a crush, like he just _got_ _laid_ —but Stan doesn't. It's just something DogPoo notices out of the corner of his eye. He doesn't make an attempt to touch Craig, but he had crept toward him, shuffling through baseball bodies like he was thinking about it. DogPoo figures it's a good thing that Stan avoided contact, because Craig might've frothed at the mouth and bit his hand off.

"—and my man needs to warm up his arm, right?"

Craig interjects, quietly, "Both arms."

Ostensibly, it's not an important thing. He's just ambidextrous. He has two good and capable arms. Clyde and the baseball team laughs; Stan snorts, but luckily, Craig doesn't hear him. Someone sighs, "Hear what he's saying? Star pitcher."

The laughter dies.

Clyde proceeds: "We're accepting all volunteers for Fuck Fest, you suicidal fuck-nuggets. If you want to go head-to-head with Craig Tucker and _fucking die_ , no one will stop you."

A senior shouts from the side, "All freshies should come and watch, unless you want to be _drafted_."

DogPoo remembers being drafted last year around this time in the spring. It sucked. At least he didn't have Craig.

"I'm telling you. Be there or be square."

Clyde leaps back into the dugout like it's a mosh pit; he cusses when no one catches him. Everyone's too busy popping open beer bottles on the sharp edges of the dugout. A junior hands "Dog Shit" a warm one and says that beer is the key; it'll put some meat on his bones.

"But I want muscle."

"Gotta get the meat first. Muscle comes from meat."

DogPoo tentatively takes the bottle and presses it to his lips. The beer tastes just like hot piss. He would know, right?

No one else minds, so he keeps drinking.

Clyde has a whole bag of chronic just sitting on his lap, asking if anyone has paper to roll it with. Someone says, "Puff, puff, pass."

Clyde snaps in response, "Okay, no, it's my weed and I'm not sharing it with all of you."

"Then why'd you pull it out, Donovan? Have some common sense."

Soon, you'll only be able to see the red of burning blunts, the occasional glint of beer bottles in the cresting moonlight, and the ephemeral touch of fireflies. Stan will run off earlier than the rest; he has world history homework, damn it. Eric Cartman will pass out and people will pull up his uniform to draw dicks on his stomach—because there's so fucking much space. Clyde Donovan will fall asleep in the dugout, higher than a kite. Someone will steal his weed.

Craig and Tweek will catch lightning bugs in the field, quietly. Tweek will try to ease information out of him, like, "H-How are you d-doing Craig? W-What's going on w-with you?"

But Craig will say nothing. He'll say, "Nothing."

He'll slink away to the little brick wall surrounding Shoddy Field and just sit there with an untouched beer, back to the baseball team. And he does, eventually.

DogPoo passes by him on the way home, another half-empty and terribly tepid beer in his hand for the journey. They nod at each other, awkwardly, acknowledging each other's presence. DogPoo steps past him, but Craig speaks.

"I hope Clyde doesn't kick his ass, ever."

And DogPoo stops in his tracks. He looks. Craig's nose is red; he keeps swiping at it with his sleeve. He scrunches his entire face and DogPoo Petuski sighs:

"Me too."

Craig glances at him with his creased expression, then looks back at the McCormick home, vaguely, like he shouldn't. There are silhouettes shifting in the dim light emanating inside: Kenny's mom and dad, not Kenny.

"How do you know?"

"I can just tell."

He can't; DogPoo is drunk, for Christ's sake. Craig grunts anyway.

He blinks at the bramble near the house, like he's expecting something from it, like a coyote's supposed to pounce from the bushes and maul him. It's like an unscripted change. It's like Craig is being ignored, but that's _fucking_ _funny_ —DogPoo coughs up his beer and all its warm, golden glory practically flies over second base. It's the kind of scene that makes DogPoo's body quiver with alcohol-induced laughter because nothing's over there, and if there was anything, it wouldn't ignore the magnitude of Craig Tucker.

/

Fuck Fest takes place on the tennis courts rather than the baseball field. The nets are gone, so it's all chunky white lines and emerald green filling them in. Black metal fences enclose the courts and the baseball team encloses the fence. Premium seats, Clyde says. The baseball team gets the premium seats first. Then the ladies squash next to the boys in their premium seats; they're important like that. Then whoever else has make due.

Before Fuck Fest, Craig throws a few pitches: at the tennis court's black fence, at the school's brick wall, at Clyde's glove. The team's there, yawning and watching, even Stan Marsh. School doesn't start in another thirty minutes, but there are students lined up to participate, to observe the imminent brutality. Word gets around quick, DogPoo supposes.

Without warning, Clyde cries, "Aw, Butterball isn't here."

Butterball: Leopold "Butters" Stotch. It's Clyde's nickname for him, even though he already has one.

Craig pounds a curveball against the brick wall of the school. He casually asks, "You care?"

Clyde cocks his head to the side. There's this brunette strand that's conspicuous against the cream color of his forehead. Tweek always wants to move it to a proper place, so Clyde swats at his determined hands as he speaks, "Mm. No, not really. Thought you would, maybe."

Craig snorts stridently, to the extreme; Tweek thinks he sneezes.

"Bless you," he says. No stutters.

As the court crams with fervent players and bystanders, Clyde takes the role of an announcer: "Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the first Fuck Fest of the season."

People cheer. Craig is unfazed.

"We have a whole cluster-fuck of brave souls ready to take on Craig Tucker, this ruthless motherfucker here."

People boo. Craig is unfazed.

"You know the rules: Craig gets the first shot. If he hits you, and I sincerely hope he doesn't, you have to take another. Like a _man_. Now if you somehow manage to dodge one of his fastballs, Craig, my man, has to let each of the remaining players take a free shot. The game ends. But that's impossible with Craig. It's never been done."

Stan murmurs, "Maybe that'll change?"

Craig isn't unfazed; his expression contorts to a flared nostril, crumpled brow, prominent frown catastrophe. It's obvious that Craig hears him; he flashes Stan his middle finger and noticeably lingers until Stan says, "Okay, I get it. Damn."

Subsequently, Clyde concludes. "Remember: you _cannot_ leave this court until Craig has murdered all of you or until one of you dodges a baseball. Don't run! Do not! If you try to escape, you're a pussy for life!"

Clyde's tongue is peeking from between his teeth. DogPoo cringes.

"It's a lovely morning. Let's bleed a little."

So, Fuck Fest starts. For an instant, Craig is completely stationary; his baseball is new and white and it twirls amid his fingers. He's choosing his victim. Once he finds him, he chucks this curveball that has the ball spinning so fast the crimson stitching blurs with the pallid skin and its existence becomes pink.

The ball clips this victim's ribs as he tries to escape. Honestly, it's not the best pitch Craig's every thrown, but it works. It must hurt, too. The victim cries out and the throng of spectators winces.

The baseball team, on the contrary, laughs—even sweet, paranoid Tweek.

A girl squeals: "They're gonna fucking die."

But everyone _knows_ this. Clyde said it himself. Over to the side, he's leaning against the fence. He's nodding, smugly.

The other players of Fuck Fest scoot; the victim is left lonesome. This is how it looks to be head-to-head with Craig Tucker. He turns so his backside is facing him. His fingers massage his wounded ribs.

"Go ahead, Tucker. Do your worst."

Craig winds up—short-lived and beautiful. As soon as the moment passes, he slams a fastball into the back of his skull.

Stan pinches the skin between his eyebrows again. He shouts, "That was uncalled for, Tucker."

And Tucker, _Craig_ , snarls: "Fuck you. They're all here."

DogPoo knows what the fuck that means. These poor boys in opposition to Craig are gonna get what they get. They're here for this, they're here.

DogPoo thinks: we're all here too. Everyone's in their own corners of the world, in their fucking bubbles unaware. We're all doing something, somewhere. We're living our stories. Wherever it may be, we're here and sometimes that's just enough. Sometimes, that's the whole story itself: just being here. It's what Craig believes. It's his philosophy.

But DogPoo thinks it's more than that. It's more than being here, watching Craig Tucker splice baseballs into young men's groins, hearing Clyde cackle and Eric ask, "Did you see that? Fucking hilarious!"

What if it's about the transition from Point A to Point B? How did we get here, or here, or here? What's the real story—not in the great scheme of things—but individually? How did Clyde get that scar, how did Craig lose his cool, how did Stan fall in love? How did that dead bird (Ivan) end up on South Park High's baseball field?

How'd it die?

Whatever happened for that bird to wind up there, of all places?

/

So, now, there's a dead raccoon on the side of the road, across from Kenny's house, in front of Shoddy Field. He's flatter than day old beer. DogPoo pokes him with a stick. And Craig Tucker notices, because when he approaches he says:

"See? You like these things."

"Dirt, maybe, but not…" DogPoo mutters, "Dead things."

Craig facial features curtly warp. He snaps, "What's your problem?"

DogPoo stares at the dried bloodstain on the pavement for a moment. He thinks he sees a missing raccoon tooth. He smiles, weakly.

"Kenny."

Craig flinches, almost.

"I mean, I'm thinking of naming the raccoon like he would. And Kenny, he's there. You know."

DogPoo gestures at the decrepit house across the street, amongst his chopped and diminishing phrases. Craig's eyes follow and he turns so he's half facing the McCormick household. He tacks on, "It's all related."

The lights are off, tonight. No silhouettes. And yet, Craig looks. He's sidelong, but strangely apathetic. He's silent, but strangely, a muscle is working in his jaw, pulsing. His body language is heartfelt, strangely, despite the hands coolly delved in his pockets and the way he stands on the cracked pavement, half his cleats tipping off the curb. Craig blinks slowly, over and over. He swallows this giant lump that slithers down his throat steadily.

DogPoo doesn't want to stare at the seemingly new tumor descending his esophagus, so his gaze goes down to the raccoon. It has skid marks on his back.

"He looks like a Herbert."

DogPoo glances at Craig's expression; unexpectedly, he's looking back at him with a faint frown, like the raccoon smells of decomposition. DogPoo supposes it does, but he's more engrossed with the name Herbert. _Really?_ He looks at Craig skeptically.

"I'm serious."

He's serious. DogPoo thinks: poor, dead, tragic _Herbert_! Or maybe, he says the phrase aloud: poor, dead _Herbert_! Oh, the tragedy! DogPoo thinks it's the latter, because Craig's thick, dark brows have abruptly arched in that murderous fashion, his mouth is twisted in that vile shape—the apathy is gone and the fierceness is back. DogPoo thinks, fuck, lighten up-

"Hey, we didn't come here to have a damn funeral Petuski. Are you gonna play baseball, or not?"

Ah, yeah. Baseball. He's here for baseball.

/

 _Edited as of January 12th, 2018_


	5. Chapter 5

/

Craig is exasperated, exhausted; Stan Marsh's team wins another fucking scrimmage at Craig's sanctuary, Shoddy Field. Tonight festers within him in unwelcome ways. Wasted back-to-back practices can have you like that—heavy lids, sore limbs, infinite thoughts. Tonight, Craig thinks in massive multitudes, attended by a recently obtained and untouched beer that bubbles through the glass neck and up to the aluminum cap. Being this unbearably tired, this close to unwanted dreams, everything seems a tad unreal. The ground is too soft, like it could surrender underneath his weight. The air is too warm, too thick to breathe. The stars' propinquity is stifling; Craig could reach up and touch.

He drifts until Tweek pokes his cheek.

"Are you alive?"

/

At Shoddy Field, the evening's denouement is baseball: drunken homeruns, metallic laughter, and floating fireflies caressing cap bills and concealing themselves in thatches of weeds. Craig knows if Kenny still played, he'd love it here. If people knew, they'd want him here—especially Stan, who has made an irking custom of coming to these nightly scrimmages. No one has the cognitive capability to put Kenneth McCormick and baseball together. People don't talk about his former tendency to pitch fastballs that could clock over ninety miles an hour at the tender age of thirteen. No one thinks of Kenny striding the length necessary to span the street and pick up where he left off. They forget, perhaps, but Craig doesn't.

There are things he wants to say, but doesn't.

After the game, Tweek affectionately confines a myriad of fireflies in a mason jar, which is only ethical because they're bugs. He murmurs to himself, "B-Beauty is only t-temporary." Craig overhears, pops the cap off his beer, and concedes to the concept of _beauty_ and _love_ and _life_ lasting umpteen eternities, forever reoccurring and forever reciprocated. He thinks of Kenny too—because he will always think of Kenny—and he thinks of a perpetual kiss between them, lasting until they fall into pieces from lack of oxygen, breathlessness, suffocation by excessive affection.

Craig thinks of wishes—stupid ones.

In the interim, Tweek observes as his fireflies helplessly bump against glass walls and glow soft green with a restless smile and dilated pupils. Craig is presented with their captivity in presence of DogPoo Petuski, who has made a habit of sticking around, who has a lone smudge of muck on his temple. He mentions dead Herbert in passing and points.

Tweek inclines to look at the raccoon's tire-tracked corpse over the brick wall, but he curtly swivels to staunchly silent Craig and the severity along his shoulders. He stammers, "H-Herbert?"

Craig shrugs. In absence of words, DogPoo speaks for him, "Tucker named him, all by himself tonight."

Tweek smiles again, lips twitching against his will; DogPoo snickers. They acted like this was some kind of _christening_. Craig scoffs, his nose scrunching wrinkles over the bridge, and he briefly wonders if they have a clue. Without much incident, his eyes skim the darkness shrouding the neglected house across the street: broken windows, cracked walls, scattered junk. No lights, tonight; he knew, but it's been several hours of covert looks and high hopes that something will change. The disappointment simmers. To play it off, Craig slips his mild grimace over his sleeve.

"I f-feel like I see more and m-more of you every day, Craig."

"It's not a big deal."

But there's a faint and warm smolder ignited on Craig's expression, lapping through the dry-fit folds off his practice uniform and onto his chest and ears and arms. He has a telling blush on his cheeks, colored rose by inane discomfiture, imperceptible by lack of light; Tweek holds up the jar of fireflies for illumination and Craig averts his gaze, lowers it to his scuffed cleats that scratch at each other's skin. Behind two curves of glass, in the odd, vibrant and pulsing firefly emissions, Tweek's mouth moves: "I t-think it is."

Craig ignores him. There's more than this moment marked over Shoddy. Clyde is preoccupied with drowning his ex-girlfriend troubles in alcohol. At school, Bebe walked by him without even looking. "You know how girls look when they miss you, when they still want you," he says. "I think there's someone else. I think it's Kenny, still."

And Clyde still wants to hurt him for sleeping with Bebe, tearing their relationship to shreds, betraying his trust and their friendship; Craig has been righteously defending him for approximately two weeks, mostly because he doesn't believe Kenny has that kind of malice inside of him. Consequently, Clyde has a plethora of bruises on his arms coloring his skin violet and plum and all the shades in between. Craig's never really felt knightly.

Now, Tweek speaks to DogPoo for what seems like the first time; Craig remembers DogPoo saying that Tweek's never been mean to him, not once. They're both very cautious, in a way that could be interpreted as exaggerated. DogPoo takes care to speak quietly, without much inflection, without any reason to incite Tweek's complexities. Tweek eyes the smudge on the other boy's cheek with muted wonder, a quiet desire to comprehend—they way Craig looks at the back of Kenny's skull, that mess of blonde hair. They look like friends—and Craig thinks that's good. He thinks of how they're all intertwined: Craig's friends and DogPoo's friends. He thinks of how there's a greater chance to talk to-

Suddenly, Tweek twists the cap off his firefly jar and flips it upside down, dumping them from their prison.

"What are you doing?" Craig scrutinizes, frown small and insignificant. From Tweek's excitement and wide-eyed wonder, Craig thought that he'd keep his fireflies cooped up all night, take them home and wake to their still and tired bodies heaped at the bottom of the jar. He had devoted most of his night to capturing as many fireflies as he could, bottling them up, and watching them dance in ephemeral illumination. And here he is, witnessing their unenergetic escape. Tweek taps the jar's flat end with his index finger, encouraging the last of the fireflies to head back home. He sighs, and none of his words are erratically hitched or altered.

"If you love something, you should let it go."

/

Despite Craig's chagrin, Tweek and DogPoo drag him back near the dugout, near Stan Marsh—the same Stan Marsh who makes his blood curdle and his grimace unbreakable, the same Stan Marsh who swoons over Kenny like he swooned over Wendy when they were in elementary school. It's infuriating, how they're so involved, so fucking together, and Craig isn't anything of the sort. He's simple and straightforward—not too good at math, too good at baseball, infatuated and irate. He's disbanded, somewhere between concealed longing, lurching unconcern, and endless contempt.

Nearby, he hears Stan laugh and suddenly Craig longs for the beer he left back at the wall, more legroom, and more patience. Stan's method of evading him is the same as his; they tend to move in orbits, circling each other like planets, circumventing collision, but making their irking presences known. Stan makes his enjoyment of life audible to mark his territory and Craig exudes a kind of murderous aura rooted in the furrow of his eyebrows. Their juxtaposed gazes occasionally cross perilous paths, but never long enough to achieve a sense of understanding with one another. Mostly, Craig aims glowers at Stan's lower back, yearning for the chance to pin him during Fuck Fest. But there are instants like these, when Craig's angle doesn't align with the bend of Stan's spine, when he has the capability to brusquely study Stan's profile.

And tonight, he seems _pleasant_. His smile is generous, but not too much—a little sleepy, maybe. His mouth is that stinging shade of chapped cherry, potentially from nervous gnawing or ardent kisses. Craig thinks of Stan thinking of Kenny and makes himself needlessly bitter. He winds up with a bellyache that churns and swirls and burns the lining of his stomach. It only deepens when Kevin McCormick steps foot onto the field, left and only dimple blemished by a birthmark, grin engulfed by palpable malevolence and interrupted by a cigarette.

At first, his presence goes relatively unnoticed; Craig barely eyes him slinking past the brick wall, but when he does, the night feels ominous, like it could pounce. His stress level clambers near his limit. Stomach throbbing rhythmically with the patter behind his sternum, Craig patiently waits for the inevitable havoc. But Kevin maintains distance, encircled by a few seniors that proceed to spoil him with unnecessary attention, reminiscing the old days when he played for the team. He pitched baseballs fast enough to concuss. Kevin asks if they still play Fuck Fest in the mornings before school, if they found anyone who could match his mettle.

"Tucker," the seniors unanimously agree. Nodding, they solemnly discuss Holden Grace, who hasn't returned to school since Craig nailed him in the back with a four-seam. Someone interjects, "I think he's paralyzed from the waist down. I _think_." They miss him inexplicably, but not as much as they miss Dylan Moore, who had to receive stitches when a cutter tore into his nape. "He was like, almost decapitated. He had a scar. He was never the same."

Kevin's dimple brightens as he spouts a wave of cigarette smoke. "Craig's good, then?"

"Really good."

"That's nuts. I remember when he was just a fucking pipsqueak—anyone see him?"

The seniors shrug. Craig cramps into a corner of teammates, listless.

Kevin brings his cigarette to his lips, sucks on the filter, sputters over a miffed inhalation, "I remember, when he played little league. He hung out with _that_ kid? The annoying one? The kinda chubby one?" Craig doesn't know why he puts on a charade of not knowing who anyone is, at any given time. But Kevin is a cataclysmic and compulsive liar—this performance must be natural for him. Craig hears Kevin continue, "He sounded just like Craig. They had the same voice back then—I used to swear they were brothers. You know? What's his name? Cl…Cly-"

"Clyde?"

Kevin exclaims, "Clyde! That's it." His gaze parts from the seniors and browses the field, cluttered with alike bodies. "Anyone see him tonight? He's the one I'm really looking for."

The seniors don't hesitate to point out his unmistakable loudness, moping on home base, begging passing teammates for another beer.

Kevin sighs, "What a shame." His icky smile returns. "He needs something to keep him in spirits, right?"

Abruptly, he drops his smoke and finagles Herbert from his gutter grave with bare hands. A myriad of baseball players around the field heave as he waves the raccoon's carcass by his mangy tail, indiscriminately stuffing him into faces and aimlessly whipping him into practice uniforms. Consequently, Herbert's corpse falls apart, darkened remnants haphazardly flung over the field. It could be considered desecration. DogPoo covers his eyes; Tweek screeches, voice aching in indescribable ways.

Stan whispers, "Jesus."

Craig exhales, the tension in his arms relinquished by the spontaneity of Kevin McCormick. He feels like he's a bystander to school bullying. It's awkward, but not any of his business. He tries to keep himself situated and cool and remote, but he's too close to Stan to be anything but uncomfortable and undeniably jealous. He wants to fucking _move_. A beer can bumps and rolls underfoot; Craig tamps down on it with his heel. He watches Clyde confront their intruder with animated and physical gestures, "What the hell is _wrong_ with you? That's fucking disgusting, man!"

"Disgusting?"

"You're covered in dead raccoon, Kevin! I know it's hard for you, but think of all the fucking diseases!" Clyde's fingers meet the blue round of his baseball cap—an evident gesticulation to the brain. "That's _disgusting_!"

Kevin laughs, palming his stomach. His tone is overwhelmingly incredulous. Clyde takes offense.

"Want me to spell it out for you? I can. Unlike you, I made it past middle school. D-I-S-G-"

"If you're calling me disgusting, you obviously haven't looked in the mirror."

"Fucking come off it."

" _You_ come off it, Donny."

"Stop calling me that."

"What? Do you prefer Clydesdale?"

"What're you doing? Why're you here?"

"I heard a certain _Clyde Donovan_ has a problem. Came to take care of it."

"Me?"

"You're Clyde, right? Don't you know your own fucking name? Need me to spell it for you? I can."

Clyde chortles, "Listen—I don't know what he said to you, but this 'problem' is between me and Kenny. Okay, Kevin? If you came here to whoop my ass, wipe the floor with my ass, or do anything to my ass whatsoever, it would be a complete disregard of honor." Craig snorts. Like Kevin McCormick gives a damn about _honor_. Nonetheless, Clyde persists with his argument, "Frankly speaking, Kenny's acting like a _bitch_ for sending you to do his dirty work."

Slyly Kevin smiles, "Kenny didn't tell me."

"Then who did?"

"Bebe."

Clyde flinches like Kevin had laid hands on him, which really wouldn't have been much of a surprise. His vexed expression contorts into one of utter confusion. "What the fuck? What'd she say?"

"She told me that you misunderstood the situation," Kevin says, approaching in lengthy and deliberate strides. "She told me to give you a _hug_." He thrusts his arms toward Clyde in a blatant attempt of an embrace; Craig notes the unsophisticated branding charred into the skin of his upper bicep, tries to list all the ways he could've received it, if it was as painful as he figures it would be. Clyde swipes at him, but Kevin remains undeterred and relentless.

"No hugs here."

"C'mere, _Donny_."

Clyde runs. Kevin pursues. The team collapses in on them as they beeline across Shoddy Field's knobs of vegetation and slicks of mud. These days, the baseball players are jubilant for any kind of violence, or drama, or chaos. In a stark contrast, Tweek worries for his friend, twitching throughout his shrill expulsions of distress. DogPoo tries to hold him back as he screams, "Craig, Craig, please—do something!" Cheeks burnished with scarlet, Eric Cartman guffaws at the ordeal, pointing at Clyde's half-assed attempt to dodge Kevin.

Stan pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs. He acts like he's above this _tomfoolery_ , which never fails to deepen Craig's frown or provoke a sudden push of irritation through his blood vessels. Stan wouldn't be on South Park High School's baseball team if he wasn't a little fucked up, if there wasn't something a little off-putting about him. But Craig attempts to disregard his holier-than-thou attitude and the dark straight bangs peeking from underneath his ball cap—the bangs Kenny had spent time caressing, tending to, pushing back.

Instead, Craig focuses in on the action: Kevin McCormick's avid pursuit of Clyde Donovan. He zones in on the older boy's movements, how they're so similar to his younger brother's.

Their features are disturbingly parallel too—skin tone, nose shape, eye color, and lip curve—but Kevin is Kenny's antithesis. He lacks his brother's essential charm, his slick and elusive allure, his intangible summer boy attraction. His vices, unlike Kenny's, aren't so tolerable; Kevin's debauchery stabs. Craig's eyes trail Clyde as he's chased around the makeshift bases, as Kevin spouts vulgarity, frightens the freshmen, and vexes a number of the upperclassmen. He does things like this. He perturbs teenagers with filth and sex, even though he's in his early twenties and much too old to nonchalantly hang around a high school baseball team.

"Aw, you smell like fucking road kill! I'm gonna hurl-"

Eventually Kevin traps Clyde in an unyielding chokehold. He forces him in the air with a hunch of his shoulders; Clyde's toes sway and swing for the ground. The color of his face transitions from an exerted crimson to a breathless blue and Kevin—always obliterating boundaries and fondling limits—smashes his grimy hand against Clyde's mouth, leaving a stain of decomposing raccoon. He yelps; Kevin shakes his body like a ragdoll until Clyde chokes on his tongue. "Shut up, twerp. How many times do I have to teach you this lesson?" Craig wonders what this lesson could possibly be as Kevin wrestles his friend unto the cleat-trodden earth. "Don't _fuck_ with me."

"Let go!"

"Nope."

"Fuck you! Let go of me, Kevin!"

"Not till you say Uncle."

"I will never say uncle! As long as I fucking _breathe_! You hear me?!"

Tweek cries for Craig's assistance again; Stan rotates enough to look over his shoulder at Craig wearily, like he really _should_ do something—and if he were a few years younger, he definitely would. He'd kick Kevin's ass just like he did freshman year in the mall's parking lot, with everyone watching, with all the righteous adrenaline he can muster. But things have changed; Craig has obligations to his team, to his community—but most importantly, to _Kenny_. So he just gives Stan the bird and rolls the unbidden weight from his shoulders. Meanwhile, Kevin McCormick leers.

"Hey, where's your _boyfriend_?"

"You fucking dickwad! I am _not_ gay and Craig is _not_ my boyfriend and even if he was I would never tell-" Kevin slaps his reddened expression with his free hand, the one dirtied in raccoon innards. He shoves two fingers in to his mouth and wiggles them to his cheek; Clyde snarls, "Fuck! You!"

"Tell Tucker I said hi, alright? Tell him I want a fucking rematch."

"What's the point? It's been three damn years, Kevin!" Clyde spits a ball of matted raccoon fur. "It's not like you'll win anyway, asswipe."

Kevin hums. He wrangles his arms below Clyde's armpits and clasps his fingers together above his sweat-ridden nape, sick of talking apparently. It's deadly dangerous, but he gradually and skillfully eases Clyde into a hold-induced sleep. And Kevin is barbaric enough to leave him there, collapsed against the pitcher's mound, slumped against the dirt. The baseball team quiets; Eric Cartman calls him a butt-fuck from a safe distance, concealed behind a barrier of intimidated freshmen. Peeling Clyde's baseball cap from his scalp, Kevin mutters, "Stay away from my brother, twerp."

Someone sniffs. Without irony, crickets sound.

Kevin perceptibly notices Stan, who's more in the forefront. He waves.

"Hi, Stan."

Stan's response lolls with hesitation; all eyes convene on his form. He awkwardly tugs on the bill of his cap, "Hey."

"Kenny was looking for you, tonight." Kevin winks, "You better call him."

"Uh, yeah. Okay."

Cartman audibly curses, "Holy _shit_."

Kevin leaves with the same kind of malevolent smile he came with. He melds back into the darkness of his home, like some hellish creature, and he takes his unsavory vibes with him. In his absence, the baseball team's chatter resumes—quietly at first, until everyone finds the altercation just as funny as it was before Clyde was left to fucking die. That's what Tweek thinks. His paranoia speaks for him, "Kevin broke his neck, Craig! He's fucking dead!" DogPoo tries to console him, palms making compassionate repetitions over tense shoulders.

Stan turns on his heel, toward Craig, who's blatantly unamused. He looks mortified, unfazed by the idea of Kenny wanting him, unfit to be anything to him at all.

"Dude. Kevin wants to fight _you_? _Again_?"

/

Clyde became Craig's responsibility, which wasn't unusual. They've been looking out for each other since the beginning of time, since they've cultivated a boyish and uneven kind of friendship: Clyde being too serious, loyal, and partial while Craig is too indifferent and detached. But when he was tasked with the dilemma of hauling Clyde's unconscious body back home or "somewhere that's not here" he didn't object. Craig could've left him by the dumpsters, braced by bags of garbage and swarmed by the buzz of flies—but Kevin was excessively cruel tonight.

So he lugged Clyde by the undersides of his arms, pulling him over the bumps in the sidewalk and the curbs between streets, letting his skull skid along the concrete. He tugged him by the ankles, avoided the claws of Clyde's cleats—and all the while, the vigilant moon beheld their one-sided struggle. Craig only took breaks for a breath, for a single gulp of air; it was rhythmic and regular until he hitched, until the resolve he had directed at delivering his friend to his front porch twists on a fulcrum to another horrendously unrequited predicament: Kenneth McCormick.

And Craig is still here, muscles ablaze, sleeve swiping across a night-chilled sweat trickling from beneath his cap. He's still adrift in the encounter, feet unwilling to budge, eyes reluctant to the notion of withdrawal.

Kenny is drenched in dim streetlight, shadowed by the love of the moon, clouded in thick cigarette smoke that billows from his lips. Curling sweetly, slim smoke wisps wither away to nothingness; what's left is Kenny's languid beauty, his tussled blond locks and unhurried pivots and paces underneath a horde of light-hungry moths. His skin is hued in molten honey, in the planet's afterglow. The color winks in his eyes and dances on his countenance. And yet, Kenny looks ready to disappear, to evaporate, to dissipate into fragile spirals. He makes subtle kissy faces at the night sky—the center of his attentions—pink mouth pursing around any departing smoke, lashes flickering and fluttering before weary cerulean irises.

Craig figures that he's here on account of the cigarette; Kenny must have nicotine cravings in the middle of the night, just like Craig did when he had a dependency on smoking. It must've pried him from his slumber. It must've called him out tonight, to a lonely and clandestine neighborhood street. It's the only explanation Craig wants to imagine, a coincidence that ties them both together by a strand of romance and fate. The thought of him drudging through the night and waiting for Stan—or anyone else—prods at his liver.

He blinks, shakes the concept of a pining Kenneth McCormick, and tries to rid himself of the knot mounting somewhere near his frontal lobe. Craig takes in protracted and consoling breaths, like he has all the sweet time on the planet, all the eternities and forevers that have been wished for by infatuated kids like him—because he's still a kid looking for the means to have what he wants. Kenny makes him feel so juvenile, so insatiable, so possessive, so avid for attention and affection he doesn't deserve. It's like an out-of-body experience; Craig is so tired of being himself—like he's pushing through the oceanic currents of Kenny's eyes, or trying to remember the exact moment he lost something dear to him.

He remembers evenings after little league, everyone pinched together arguing about stupid shit, useless shit, fucking ridiculous shit, or just shit in general. He remembers the roll of Kenny's laugh, the way he fed Craig wooden pencils during practice, slid them between his rows of teeth—even when Tweek yanked them out of his mouth and scolded. He remembers never having to long, because Kenny's vicinity was Craig's vicinity; they didn't share spaces, ignorantly edging near each other's bubbles—they coincided, with strange benevolence and amiable ambitions.

He remembers and remembers—Craig only ever remembers, but there are things that still elude him, that twinge in his head whenever he tries to recall. He thinks of the onset of spring, years ago. He thinks of being vulnerably young and looking apathetic, even if the descent of pink tree blooms into certain languorous meanders of blonde hair made him feel like he would combust in his skin. He thinks of puddles and dewy grass, baseballs smothered in dampness, slicking off palms and past fingers. Kenny was there, beautiful in an effortless way, waiting for-

"W-What the _fuck_?"

In his arms, Clyde stirs.

"Craig? Holy hell, Craig—my head is killing me."

He sighs, forgoing the past and flicking the present matter atop his marred forehead.

"You're drunk, dumbass. Kevin McCormick put you in a full nelson."

Clyde sounds relatively outraged, "You didn't help me?"

"Can't fight, remember?"

The brunette, whose hair is strewn with grass and springtime dandelion fur, blows a raspberry—a dejected one. "Whatever. That asshole is gonna get it one day, from me. Personally."

Craig scoffs, "Sure."

"I mean it."

"Kevin has your cap, if you were wondering."

"I wasn't." Clyde smacks his lips together, "What time is it?"

Back in the conception of real youth, in the duration of their childhood's peak, the little league team stayed up this late almost every night, spread amongst pallets made of bed sheets and camp-scented sleeping bags. In the flush of dawn, Kenny used to say, "Morning and night. Little bit of both." Those very words nearly pounce from Craig's mouth, but he catches them near his teeth, balls them up, and crunches them back in his throat and in a cache of memories that ache. "It's like, three," Craig says, less confidently than he intends. "Three in the morning."

"You guess?! It's a school night!"

"You weren't thinking about school when you were getting blitzed."

With a nasally imitation, Clyde mocks, "'Blitzed.' Who _says_ that?" He snorts, "You might as well be my fucking mother."

Craig deadpans, "Your mother's dead."

"Fuck you. Take me home." Clyde speaks in a voice inundated with finality, settling himself in Craig's hold. The more indifferent boy pulls him in the wrong direction.

"We're going to my house, dipshit."

In seeming realization, Clyde snaps his fingers, "Better yet, take me to Bebe's."

"Fuck no."

"Why the hell not?"

"You're _drunk_. You're gonna say something fucked up, her feelings are gonna be hurt, and I'm gonna have to deal with it. I'm not in the fucking mood."

"You're _so_ wrong."

"Yeah? Tell me what you want to tell her."

Clyde bursts from Craig's grasp and stumbles to a standing position. His lower lip trembles, "Bebe Stevens…" His bruised arms outstretch into an attempted embrace and he weeps: "I love you so much." He sniffles, phrases broken by sputters and wails, "When you slept with that pretty piece of shit, you hurt me—but I'll always be here. For you. Come back to me." As Clyde loudly slaps his chest for emphasis, Craig winces, thinks of Kenny being bothered by their dissent. He hisses.

"Those are like, Boys II Men lyrics."

"I'm speaking from the heart! If you had one, you would know!"

Craig huffs, catching hold of Clyde's sleeve and tugging, "Come on. We're leaving."

Clyde snatches his arm back, pulling his friend with him. Craig trips, and in the midst of his stagger, he's able to sneak a quick glimpse of the boy across the street, beneath the streetlight, swathed in pulchritude and appeal. Kenny's looking. The tilt of his chin is more mocking than it is inquisitive; uncharacteristically, Craig's cheeks smolder. His voice cracks from undue and _blonde_ pressure.

" _Clyde_."

Ostensibly, Clyde discerns the vicious arch of the taller boy's brows, the darkness looming in his pupils and toiling through his irises. He mumbles, sounding somewhat concerned, "You look stressed, Craig." Clyde reaches for him, only for his hands to be swatted away. He squints and slurs, "What's got you all worked up, huh?"

There's another glance, an innocuous and hasty look at Kenny's sneakers, that flitters up to his tattered tank top, that pampers the expanse of his exposed, bronzed arms. He should be cold, even if he isn't, even if it's the springtime—Craig has an awful urge to warm him up, to embrace and feel the bulges of his shoulder blades below his fingertips. He wants to feel the subtle ridges of his ribcage, the ridges that he knows are there because Kenny surprisingly eats like a bird during lunch. Craig wants to whisper that Kenny is lost tonight— _why else would you be here?—_ and that he could find some semblance of the right way home in Craig's bed. He lingers on the idea a little too long, long enough to be conspicuous, long enough for Clyde to frown at him with suspicion.

"Nothing. Let's fucking go."

But Clyde's narrowed gaze follows Craig's previous glance, right to the blonde bemused below a faint streetlight. He doesn't flinch. He isn't upset. There's a moment of peace—noiseless, tranquil, and utterly forgiving. Kenny's eyes click with Craig's, curious, intrusive, prying, and so dreadfully blue—even from afar, Craig can see the oceans and whirlpools and broad currents filling his irises. There's a connection, an attachment, some touch of empathy; Craig's fingers curl, his breath hitches, his heart snaps, his grimace splits into an expression of agony—but then there's Clyde, who misses his ex-girlfriend, who quietly mutters, "Pretty piece of _shit_." There's Clyde, who has wanted to hurt Kenny for close two weeks, who has a blanket of bruises on his arms because Craig won't let him. There's Clyde, who bolts across the street in metal cleats, with enough inebriated fury to melt the earth.

"Clyde. Don't. Don't fucking do it— _stop_!"

/

Somewhere out there, love exists—the love that we want. Craig's love is profound and fervent, more than what others would expect of him. His love is the shade of cantaloupe, similar to the taste. It's lenient, indulgent, almost to the point of absurdity; Craig knows that his errors are inevitable, that his fuck ups are inescapable. He always fucks up—with his voice, with his face, and with his fists. But Craig needs clemency like the world needs sunlight— _sunlight_.

It burns. It bleeds amber through tree branches and trickles into the hole of his chest. Craig's heart is dead and visible, residing between a pair of overworked and singed lungs, connected to a limp aorta. Nonetheless, he can breathe. He can drink up the sun's rays and the consequent shade wavering over his body due to occasional gusts of wind. He can move, sit up, and distinguish his surroundings as a place he's seen before. This is a transparent dream, but Craig doesn't remember falling asleep, or even fighting its arrival.

Overhead, a sky of marmalade douses partial patches of grass below him in a dark coat of indigo blue. Trees enclose Craig in his perch above a baseball field—the baseball field from childhood little league. He feels a puff of warmth ghosting over his nape, a small breath brushing his hair, and behind him, there's a cornucopia of warmth—copious blonde hair and deep cobalt eyes, defined by a sweet caramel tint.

"Kenny, I…"

There's a sudden finger to Craig's gape, lips on his chipped and bloodied collarbone.

"You want me to help you with that?"

Kenny gestures to Craig's heart, runs fingers beside the wound, tongues along the ridge of his clavicle; Craig nods, lips thinning from the feel of Kenny, from the sight of him toying with his senses. He pleads the dream for something more: Kenny kissing him in lieu of a fleeting goodbye, sliding down the shivering span of his body, smoothing palms along his waistline, delving slender fingers below said waistline to make Craig gasp, to mouth over his—

"I'll do what I can."

Kenny smiles, easy and faultless; the beauty distracts. He speaks like a dream would, fuzzy and delighted, tone smirched because Craig doesn't hear him much anymore. He can't remember what it's like. Kenny sighs, "But first, tell me how you've been? When was the last time we talked?"

He comes unbelievably close and unfeasibly closer until they're nestled together beneath the sky and the trees and the lovebirds roosted on their pointed arms, chirping mellifluous tunes of devotion. They whisper every nothing possible, every superficial thought. Their proximity isn't a necessity—there's only the two of them here in this dream—but their hands graze and their smiles brush. Kenny's legs entwine with Craig's and he mentions the occurrence of baseball like a jilted lover. When Craig shushes him with a chaste touch of lips and a murmur or two— _don't be like that, you love it, you know you do_ —Kenny kisses back, playfully.

"I'm sorry that I hate baseball. I'm sorry that you're dreaming. I'm sorry that it hurts."

It's the dream talking, all of Craig's wants permeated through his mouth—but these are things Kenny will never say. Craig exhales, "It's your fault."

His fingers loll into Kenny's tresses, looping his blondeness into ephemeral and lax corkscrews. Kenny sighs, "I'll make it feel better." Craig hums in approval, watching him peer into the manifestation of his hurt. His fingertips return to outline the trauma. Skin seems to have extensively sunk around Craig's ribcage before being ripped to expose his dying innards. Exaggerated perhaps, but when Stan receives any reciprocation from Kenny, it's becoming of the sensation.

Craig thinks of Stan kissing the blonde's pulse, his mop of dark hair propped on his thighs, their comfortable little sphere together at the batting cages. He thinks of the look he gave Kenny, the vehemence of his glower prompting such a coy response: startled eyes, an ample gape, a fucking _blush_. Embarrassment. It wasn't how it was supposed to be—something Craig is endlessly sorry for.

"Remember when we met?"

Craig voices a passing thought, in midst of other notions. He thinks of how he never looked at Kenny like that before, how he was so upset with himself for not being control of his emotions, for unnerving him. He thinks of how he went home and howled profanities at a pale moon and chucked baseballs across its dimpled face, until the bands and bundles of tendons in his arm had been pulverized.

But Kenny shakes his head, "I don't think so." His fingers worm into the cavern of Craig's chest, within the enclosure of his ribs, clutching that vulnerable, vital, and achingly soft organ. He encroaches upon his heart's atriums and valves, with firm compresses and determined squeezes. Blood renews its course through Craig's body, even as Kenny's brows furrow together in quiet recollection. Craig kisses the gentle creases, omniscient to the blonde's thoughts. He knows; Kenny is thinking of something vague and nebulous—a beginning obscured by youth too forgone to recall. They've always known each other, _always_ —barely touching or looking or speaking now—but Craig wants him to remember _that specific_ moment from so many years ago: heartbeats aligned and smiles fixed and fingers mingled around a baseball-

"You saved me. You don't remember, but you did."

Prompted by a feather-light touch of the artery lining his neck, Kenny shivers. Craig's lips find and linger along his cheek just as delicate, nipping a carmine path to his mouth. The proceeding kiss is prolonged, evoked by gentleness Craig has yet to coddle Kenny with outside of a dream. It's inundated in cautious care and repressed want. As the kiss extends, they become more comfortable with each other. It morphs into benign laps of tongue, an amalgam of odd, astonished breaths and curious, and exploratory nibbles; Kenny's malleability is concurrently challenged by Craig's seething desires, pooled low in his belly. He notes every nook, every ridge, and every tooth of the blonde's mouth, even if they're beguiling impressions of a dream. He's a mouthful of surrealism, distant and indistinct. There's the familiarity of nicotine, a tang of addiction, tinged by the reckless sweetness reminiscent of bubblegum.

Amid osculation, Kenny sighs, damp and swollen lips parting in soft exhaustion; Craig takes the opportunity to confide in Kenny, to divulge. He captures his upper lip between teeth and whispers about romance, "I've been waiting for an eternity and—you won't ever look…" He nuzzles his nose into Kenny's cheek, tells him that this dying heart in his hold has only ever belonged to him—Craig murmurs with saccharine intent, with the most tenderness he can summon, "You're so fucking blind, but I want you."

Kenny laughs the way Craig remembers, a little too light, too high-pitched for his age now. He advances with a lavishing and keen mouth, wrenching his spare arm around Craig's shoulders as Craig clasps his ribs and hips, seeking an anchor against his enthusiasm. Their closeness disregards the state of his torso, gruesome and cavernous; Kenny's hand keeps working between them, inside his chest, steadily hugging Craig's heart with his fingers. He can feel the dig, the blood sweeping and racing through his veins, eliciting the kind of intense passion Kenny deserves.

The kiss finally ceases with a subdued pop, a muted smack of lips, and a quiet dissonance of sated pants. Craig continues to pepper breathless, trivial pecks against Kenny's expression, against a smattering of freckles born from his imagination, against the rose figments of a blush—but Kenny would _never_ be embarrassed over intimacy like this. He's been kissed too many times, by too many other people. But Kenny still leans into him, still wants him, still pumps the heart inside of him all by his lonesome. His blonde lashes adhere to one another in contentment, _never_ ignorance—but Craig feels a tug of vexation yanking at his kidney and yearns for Kenny's attention.

"Look at me."

Craig is painstakingly soft, in Kenny's ear like a breeze. He kisses the shell, brushes back a stray bang. It takes effort to be so amorous, to be so fucking gentle—and Kenny stays motionless, malleable, and picturesque. His countenance is encompassed by Craig's careful palms, caressed by his thumbs, disturbed by his forceful kiss to the blonde's lips, begging for entry once again.

He whispers against the swell of his lips, "Kenny— _look_ at me. Please."

And the dream falters.

It snaps in two, a sprawl of raven colored catastrophe fissuring between Craig and Kenny. From the murky depths, shadows rise and seize their arms and legs. The sky of sweetness shatters and liquefies as drops of rain. The trees' leaves tumble from their branches and crumble into dust. The dream is barren and lifeless, but Craig is only perturbed by Kenny, the facet he calls out to and strives for despite the inky clutches.

Pitch sludge swarms Kenny's limbs with such a covetous and possessive slick Craig feels a burble of envy popping in his stomach. The slime breaches the caramel expanse of Kenny's throat, tickling the sun-loved underside of his chin with sinister tendrils—and Craig screams. He laments for the injustice of his dream being stolen, for the want of love and existence; the hand around his heart stalls until his voice is shattered and futile—until death is inevitable and trailing up his skin in thin black lines, invading and curling around his insides. Kenny resigns himself with a frown, seeping deeper. Tilting on an axis, abundant blonde bangs trail behind him. He forms words slowly in a quiet depth, in a sudden epiphany, "Isn't this the other way around?"

They're both consumed by a sluggish abnormality, the kind that festers in the breast and lingers in the cranium, the kind that tramples through everything and everyone, impulsive and thoughtless. It's the kind of malady that proves that the heart is only meant to take so much, and that endures as unrequited, no matter what.

/

Craig's dream was the equivalent of a pale pink cloud. He fell through, descending through turquoise skies, until he converged with pavement. And when he wakes, pain is all he can feel. It thrums down his frame, inches in his intestines, terrorizes his cardiac system, and culminates in his skull. His vision pulses with flecks of white, but Craig recognizes his bedroom's mess: tightly together curtains, crumpled pre-calculus homework, scattered posters, trash bins of countless baseballs. He's folded on his mattress, on top of his navy blue sheets. Clyde is squashed on his carpet, snoring. There are moments he can't recall, that throb in his cerebral cortex until he gives up.

Craig pushes himself to his window, the one looking onto the street in front of his home. Wet smears of eternal snow are still dotted across neighborhood yards, kitchen lights still flicker through panes, and wooden gates are still left open that were meant to be shut. The world never stopped its revolution tonight, but Craig feels as though he's missing something more than a dream. He pulls the chair out from his desk and props an elbow on the sill, resting his jaw in the cup of his palm. He tries to touch the memory of his dream, its peach soft figments, but it's so intangibly fickle. Craig knows that it'll come back to him in inexplicable fragments, if it will ever come back at all, if it ever bothers to realize his longing.

Dreams remind him of Kenny, the way he refuses to look.

The darkness outside his window shimmers with an infinity of stars, coalesced like his thoughts—scrunched together in infuriating sentiment, in constellations of subtlety. They flaunt their luminescence only to shy at dawn. Craig thinks: in other neighborhoods, nights like this aren't so rare—that we're all subjugated to their blight at some point. He thinks of the velvety awe, slippery and soft, streaming down as tears or coming up as bile that sears the smooths of windpipes. He thinks of the crude and instinctive loneliness jailed in our anxious stomachs, accompanied by the equally destructive craving that aches for everything we lack. Craig muses over night's romance: the eternally perfect time, the perpetually perfect place. He could reach up and touch.

He thinks: Do stars love like this, so fruitlessly, without any kind of substantial fulfillment?

It's a dangerous assumption, but he would like to think that what he's feeling is love. He'd like to think that it's stronger than anything Stan could coddle Kenny with. He'd like to think of romantic things he should never think of, that he's been burdened with since Stan stole him—like a love-ridden home poised between the edge of the universe and a baseball field for two. He and Kenny would pitch comets and bat incessant misses until a homerun pops against the moon and ricochets against the flaming skin of a star. They'd only look at each other. They'd want to make each other happy.

In other neighborhoods, there are heavenly bodies veiled by light pollution. They don't have the chance to shine, to be seen, to be wished upon—and isn't that what they want? Craig thinks of fulfillment and fruition and the childishness of wishing, placing hopes in the nonexistent hands of stars—but sleep whisks Craig away with a cascade of them. Palm cupping his pout, fingers rattling his cheek, eyes batting in a fierce clash against the concept of rest, Craig wishes for sleepless, tangible, and endless dreams. He wishes for a moment Kenneth McCormick's time—just a moment of his concentration and his focus. He wishes for the possibility to at least thank him, for everything: his dreams, his heart, his arm, his second chance.

/

 _Tell me how you feel, like, from your heart and stuff._


End file.
